Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118160202#Comment_118160202

Indeed. It is remarkable how every now and again someone here thinks the EU is so myopic and incompetent that it would sabotage its single biggest pillar, and Sacrifice a nation within it, rather than fight in its own corner. TBH it smacks of that lingering insecurity that Ireland is an offshoot of Britain, rather than the reality - a part of the EU and European continent as a whole. That it's Britain and Ireland, then "Europe" and a clutch of clichés or cultural stereotypes.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118158104#Comment_118158104

For all his moaning about the lack of political nous in many politicians, he really is spectacularly ill-informed about the EU and how it actually works.

ArmaniJeanss

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118160045#Comment_118160045

Peter Foster (FT, Ex-Telegraph) tweeted "Been asking around about how far to aim off for Cummings artistic licence/bitterness…am told is true."

I guess it's something that will be impossible to prove anyway. Though it's fair to say that there's nothing in Johnsons utterings on the subject to suggest he has ever had an expert level knowledge of the CU/SM etc. When questioned in any detail, the response usually starts off with what might be heading to a coherent answer, but descends quickly to a bit of stammering, then a tangent to an anecdote, finishing up with a slogan.

swampgas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118160045#Comment_118160045

https://dominiccummings.substack.com/p/risk-aggression-brexit-and-article has the full blog post, if you have the patience and stomach for it.

Joe_ Public

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118159541#Comment_118159541

I remember when Rees Mogg suggested it would take 50 years to see the real benefits. They don't seem to let him out much anymore!

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118160045#Comment_118160045

You have to consider the source. It's eminently possible that Cummings is lying but given Johnson's own track record of sloth, ignorance and avarice it seems possible.

If you scroll down, you get:

I see he is lecturing MPs on second jobs.

Back in January 2020, days after his return from holidays, I was already clutching my head at dealing with nonsense from Carrie’s wallpaper to his sabotaging of my plan to change the physical setup of No10 so it could function better in a crisis — blackly ironic given just a few weeks later we faced a historic crisis with a totally dysfunctional No10 setup. (He objected to change on the grounds that his new office did not have enough physical exits — he likes being able to escape his office without Outer Office knowing, hence also his creation of a special extra exit at the top of the No10 flat. Now he can walk out of his office into the Cabinet room then out those doors into the garden and away, without being spotted. This is why my second attempt to change the layout of No10 in summer 2020, after covid had brutally proved my arguments about No10’s inadequacies, gave the PM the Cabinet Secretary’s office, far grander than the PM’s and with multiple escape routes. This also failed…)

One morning in mid-January he called me into his study.

Dom, I want to run something by you. Do you think it’s OK if I spend a lot of time writing my Shakespeare book?

What do you mean?

This **** divorce, very expensive. And this job. It’s like getting up every morning pulling a 747 down the runway. [Pause] I love writing, I love it, I want to write my Shakespeare book.

I think people expect you to be doing the PM’s job, I wouldn’t talk to people about this if I were you…

You get the idea. Within a month of the election he was bored with the PM job and wanted to get back to what he loves while shaking down the publishers for some extra cash. (In February as covid spread he was in Chevening writing about Shakespeare and messaging No10 that covid was ‘the new swine flu’ — though as I told MPs, we actually did not want him to stop his holiday as we thought he would return and tell everyone it was a hoax. Which of course is what he did when he returned at the end of February…)

So WTF is he doing having a go at MPs given all his own outside earnings — and attempted outside earnings and illegal secret donations, while he’s supposed to be pretending to be PM?!

He triggered the first discussions on his firing squad in August. These discussions have intensified across London. They will not stop until he has gone. At some point Self-Aware mode will kick in and surprise people but it won’t stave off the inevitable for long.

Again, this could be entirely false but Johnson pursuing personal profit over doing his job and fulfilling his responsibilities to this nation, the position and responsibilities he betrayed David Cameron for is entirely within the bounds of reality for him. I've never understood why he wanted to be prime minister and he seems to be bored with it already.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118159541#Comment_118159541

Watch back the Brexit TV referendum debates and it was all "As soon as we are out, we will be able to do this" and "The moment we leave, this will allow us to....." etc.

It was never, ever, ever sold as something that would be taking effect years or decades later.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118160341#Comment_118160341

Didn't a tutor at Eton say he was one of the laziest and most useless students ever to walk through the door? But with a huge ego and sense of entitlement and sense of his own importance though.

I saw someone in the Guardian comments saying yesterday that's he's little more than an after dinner speaker and bon viveur and has no other qualities. He can hardly be called a 'politician' at all.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118160398#Comment_118160398

Yep. Jeremy Vine goes through how he wings it on a series of after dinner speeches here:

https://reaction.life/jeremy-vine-my-boris-story/

Max Hastings, his former boss at the Daily Telegraph described him as "utterly unfit to be prime minister". It's a consistent theme.

Professor Moriarty

Latest opinion poll gives Labour a.................................................................................................................. 6% lead.

tanko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118160376#Comment_118160376

Well said, how many times was the phrase “take back control” used over and over and over again before the referendum? Remember all the disastrous EU laws they were going to repeal the minute they left. There was no mention of it taking 20 or 50 years to see the benefits of Brexit.

murphaph

Johnson would never become CEO of even the smallest of companies in the private sector. It's staggering that he's where he is.

McGiver

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118160755#Comment_118160755

Yet none of them could name a single law they are against.

Apart from the shady disaster capitalists behind the project - they are against financial regulations, of course.

reslfj

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118160032#Comment_118160032

they'd engage willingly alright

No, don't take that for granted. Several EU27 members will not let England re-join unless it has made large reforms politically, economically and in many other ways. Remember we all 27 have a veto - and several even many will use it.

The UK will continue to be a market for EU products and any extra benefits from the UK getting closer to us will not outweigh the trouble with a sabotaging England in the EU.

Lars 😀

'

20silkcut

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118160289#Comment_118160289

Yes and history provides many examples of Ireland using continental alliances to stand up to British aggression.

VinLieger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118160554#Comment_118160554

Pretty pathetic all considering and still nowhere near enough to win due to FPtP

Professor Moriarty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118161964#Comment_118161964

Yes indeed. However, if the trend and trajectory continue...

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118162005#Comment_118162005

And I don't see the Tories being able to change their ways. There will be more sleaze to come

Professor Moriarty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118162022#Comment_118162022

Hopefully. It's systemic to populism.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118162005#Comment_118162005

I tend not to be too bothered with polls. Only one really matters but it is nice to see that lead get seriously eroded all the same and there's plenty of corruption to come.

lawred2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118161746#Comment_118161746

Poster said membership of CU and SM. I definitely think they would engage with that

yagan

I think it's been a watershed week if the opinion poll swing against Boris and chums persists.

Attacking the NIP just isn't outraging the English Brexit voters like the trawlers wars with the French does. They don't do legalese, it bores them and they get swamped in the NIP like Essex got swamped in Ireland in the 16th century, an event which makes a nice bookend to the present.

reslfj

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118162270#Comment_118162270

I don't. All of the 27 potential vetoes will be very hard to get around for England.

England will have to accept ALL of the EU's 'acquis' whether as an EU member or just as a CU+SM member.

Being nice and sweet is no longer an option toward England and its exceptionalism.

We need England to accept full future cooperation on e.g. new EU initiatives like global minimum taxation for companies and rich people.

Lars 😀

kowloon

That Jeremy Vine story was new to me.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118162639#Comment_118162639

Interesting to hear him say that even he was taken in by Johnson's spiel and assumed he must be intelligent - until he heard him giving almost the exact same speech, word for word, a few months later in a different venue (and realised it was just a load of pre-scripted guff).

kowloon

I've heard people say he was playing a "loveable buffoon" character before. Usually, just tame stuff like him putting effort into messing up his hair before leaving the campaign bus. What confuses me is how much people like the character and think he's suitable for running a country.

It reminds me of how people put our own "loveable rogue" Taoiseach, Ahern, into power, although he wasn't quite on the same scale.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118162889#Comment_118162889

I think the English deference to toffs with posh accents is a big factor. In most countries in Europe, a ridiculous figure like Johnson would be laughed out of it by the majority of the electorate. The idea that he is now running the UK (with no obvious skills as a politician or leader) is a bit mind boggling.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118162912#Comment_118162912

It is and it isn't.

Firstly, "Boris" is just a character played by Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. The tousled hair, the untucked shirt and the gaffes are all carefully calibrated elements of a buffoonish façade designed to attenuate the suspicions of the public.

Secondly, the man is not remotely stupid. I doubt his capacity for hard work, his attention to detail and his integrity but he's no fool. What he is is a ruthless operator with his own ambitions. It is for this reason that he supported leave as the leadership of the Tory party had been promised to George Osborne. Johnson came out for Leave with a vengeful Michael Gove and the rest of the Eurocynics of the Conservative Party.

Once he secured the leadership after failing to properly contend the previous leadership challenge with Theresa May, the rest was easy enough. Years of throwing red meat to the base paid off, Brexit "got done" and, like a feudal monarch he then proceeded to dole out top jobs, sinecures, peerages and contracts to his favourites.

Margaret Thatcher once said of Tory moderate Willie Whitelaw that "Every Prime Minister needs a Willie". What she meant was that talented individuals have value and should not be discarded because they disagree with the leadership. Johnson has, by contrast ditched talented individuals like Sir Nicholas Soames and Dominic Grieve.

Ultimately, securing the Tory party leadership was it. Labour were and are a mess and the Tory leadership is decided by about 100,000 party members who seem to have some appalling views. He then won just over 40% of the vote and here we are.

kowloon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118162912#Comment_118162912

This is the country of the "We've all had enough of experts" campaign. I'm sure a sizable portion of Tory voters resent qualifications and competence. I can't get my head around how the toffs became the champions of the working man.

Panrich

I don’t agree that Johnson is not stupid and is simply playing a role to gain popularity. There are too many stories out there about how he does not understand how the CU and SM work or how he thought that Covid was just a ‘flu to back up the suspicion.

He does have some low cunning though and has created a persona based on him not having to be clever to succeed.