5th November 2021
The government of the United Kingdom looks set to trigger Article 16.
The European Union is currently considering its various options when this much-advertised and threatened action takes place.
And there is little evidence that the United Kingdom has put any thought into what comes next.
The triggering is the thing, you see.
Doesn’t this all seem familiar?
Almost exactly the same as the lack of thought that went into the Article 50 notification.
And the government of the United Kingdom – having had to reverse its madcap attempt to change the commons standards regime – is seeking to disapply yet another set of rules with which it does not want to comply.
None of the current enterprise even has the merit of originality.
The same lack of thought, the same lack of seriousness, the same sheer tomfoolery, and the same drive to not be bound by rules, that are features of so many of this government’s escapades.
We can wonder what the government expects when – eventually – this trigger is pulled.
Perhaps they hope for a frenzy of cathartic exhilaration.
Perhaps puffs of magic.
Who knows.
But unless there is something not obvious to us on the outside, it looks like the government of the United Kingdom may again be wrong-footed and then have to accept whatever the European Union offers to close down the dispute.
Brexit is defined as doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result, as a famous thinker did not once say.
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Madness, indeed.
It seems plain that the UK’s Brexit-related policies, including Brexit itself, are driven primarily not by political theory, law or diplomacy, but primarily by Boris Johnson’s personality defects.
> “It seems plain that the UK’s Brexit-related policies… are driven primarily by Boris Johnson’s personality defects”. <
I think it would be a mistake to pin the blame on Johnson and focus on him as the root of all evils. Boris is just the tip of the Brexit iceberg, underneath him are layers of rich and powerful individuals, organisations and countries that wanted Brexit done at any any cost. Johnson is just the silly hat on the head of a destructive and powerful madman (the pro Brexit anti Eu brigade). Sure you can replace the funny hat with a more sober and dignified one, but the madman will still be as destructive and dangerous as ever.
Agree with every word – it’s all about shifting the emphasis away from Johnson’s ineptitude – blustering announcements with no thought or plan behind them. I sense a desperate man clutching at straws – they’ll ditch him soon – Sunak’s waiting for his chance.
I fear that before he is ditched, he will defend himself by distracting the electorate: EU war, then culture wars are coming. We really do need to do more than just hope it stops there. Education would normally help, but the main vector to the electors is the press. Much worse awaits us.
Can one really speak of “Johnson’s ineptitude”? I believe that’s a dangerous way to underestimate the perils posed by this PM. There’s every evidence of this as well as of the many last Tory premiers’ and of their cohorts having swerved heavily to far-right positions.
In a way, to call Johnson inept is kind of absolving him and his party from what seems to me a concrete political project.
We have plenty of these examples in the EU, i.e., Salvini and Meloni in Italy, Le Pen in France, Orban in Hungary, etc. but we wouldn’t make the mistake of calling them inept.
I thought Boris had hired some hot shot lawyers to help poor old Frosty out. A bit of ‘new thinking’, a ‘different interpretation’.
Not sure the result is going to be any different though. How does a senior legal partner tactfully tell a very rich client ‘you’re screwed’ and also keep the fees flowing. A fool and (our) money….
There is the whiff of the boiling bunny about this. The motivation seems to have something to do with demonstrating who-loves-Britain-the-most seasoned with a grim determination to appear to punish those not sufficiently in love with the brexit new world.