This week in Brexitland, October 22nd, 2021
Turning post-Brexit Britain into a green wonderland
For whatever reason, Boris Johnson likes to talk a reasonable amount about green stuff. This is one of the few things I like about him, particularly given the topic is really unpopular amongst his base. You could say he’s doing it solely to keep his wife happy - maybe that holds water, who knows. The fact is, Johnson is for once doing something that goes against the grain of what keeps him popular amongst those he truly wants to court.
Which makes it all the weirder that his actual green plans are so lame. Why take the hit from your followers if you aren’t actually going to do anything to solve the actual problem? Some of the government’s green targets are ambitious - it’s just that the routes to getting there are almost always embarrassingly poor, trying to utilise things that have failed multiple times already.
What does this have to do with Brexit, I hear you ask? It seems like part of the way Johnson is trying to triangulate all of this is to talk about doing green stuff as a benefit of being outside of the EU. But I have studied the government’s green plans in great detail and I have yet to come across a single thing they involve that couldn’t have been done from inside of the European Union. I just wish for once, something the government wanted to do that they said couldn’t be done as an EU member really couldn’t be done as an EU member. I guess there’s always abuse of state aid to look forward to. Remember when the Tories used to say Labour wanted to turn the UK into Venezuela?
Poland’s ‘intelligent Brexit’
The Daily Telegraph ran an article this week entitled “Poland's 'intelligent Brexit' means it can have its cake and eat it”. I’ll summarise the piece for you: instead of going ahead and doing something idiotic like triggering Article 50 in order to leave the EU full stop, Poland have decided to stay in the EU and just do whatever the hell they like. The calculation is the EU won’t kick them out over any of this - a decent guess given what they have let Hungary get away with over the years - so this is way smarter than leaving. Because, hey, it turns out you can stay in the EU and still do whatever you like, all while getting the benefits of EU membership.
This Telegraph article wants to try and make this information conform to Eurosceptic prejudices - remember when the EU said you couldn’t have your cake and eat it too? Well look at Poland! What a bunch of hypocrites! - yet seems to have unconsciously made the point that Britain leaving the EU was an incalculably stupid thing for the nation to have done.
For instance, if Poland can stay in the EU, get all the benefits of being in the single market, etc, while setting out their own stall as it were, why couldn’t the UK have done that instead of suffering through everything it has since 2016? I think this line from the Telegraph article sums it up rather nicely:
‘But as a member of the club, rather than one on the way out, (Poland) can veto key EU legislation and gum up the Brussels machine.’ Indeed - did Brexiteers never consider this point prior to this week? Little late now, boys.
3.Nigel Farage, the Brexiteers and their “expertise” on how Ireland works
Everyone’s favourite former UKIP leader was on Irish TV this week, making a right arse of himself. It was glorious to see. Claire Byrne had him on her RTE programme as Farage had blundered into another Cameo moment, uttering the slogan “Up the Ra”, clearly without understanding it in the slightest.
You’d think this would be enough to shut him up about all matters Irish, but this is Farage we’re talking about. The man doesn’t know when to quit. Instead, he thought he’d come onto RTE and tell the Irish nation all about how how they had fought against the English for centuries only to be dominated by the bureaucrats in Brussels. Hadn’t the Irish had enough of tyranny? Wouldn’t freedom mean making the same stupid mistake the English had made, all because the English had made it and hey, what do the Irish exist for other than to help the English out of a jam, am I right?
Byrne took Farage to pieces in a way that made me wonder why British presenters couldn’t have done the same thing all these years. If instead of being treated as some sort of holy representative of the Brexity masses made flesh, Nige been treated like nothing more than a pub bore, maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess right now.
The Festival of something other than Brexit
Remember when Theresa May decided there should be a “Festival of Brexit” to celebrate how great everything was going to be when she removed us from the EU? Well, after she never managed the one thing her entire premiership was about, the Festival of Brexit seemed to go the way all of her notions seemed to go, ie, straight into the nearest bin. But no! The Festival of Brexit is going to happen, chums! Except, it’s now distanced itself big time from the B-word, with it not to be found anywhere near the title of the thing. Unboxed: Something or other, I find this too depressing to even bother Googling it. It seems that even the Festival of Brexit doesn’t believe in Brexit any longer.
Until next time, remember this: Brexit may look stupider by the week, but there many weeks of stupid ahead of us. Stay strong!