For years now, the British government has cared little about the suffering
of Syrian civillians and it has turned a blind eye to the suffering of Yemen where British manufactured weapons are used with impunity by Saudi Arabia. One Russian is targeted with a nerve agent – yes a
horrifying weapon as many in the Middle East can attest to – and next minute we
are suffocating in indignation and national outrage and demanding support from
‘EU allies’. Those would be the same EU allies the British press has denigrated
for decades and who – with the help of nasty, xenophobic privately educated white bloke
Farage, the gross misjudgement of incompetent elite-educated white bloke Cameron and
lack of gumption of ineffectual posh prep school white bloke Corbyn – we just ditched. (check out blog 171. Privileged white blokes keep getting it wrong - why do we keep listening to them?)
Inch by inch news drips out about the painful progress of Brexit
talks that often end with a limited agreement and a caveat that Britain submits
to EU rules in that particular area (see the City of London compromise last
week).
IT’s as if Britain cut its right leg off without an
anaesthetic and now – bit by bit – we are building a lumpen, wonky prosthetic
that looks something like what we had before but – not as good and likely to
send us sprawling. However, each desperate tortuous inch of partial agreement
is hailed as a success while in reality nothing is truly agreed until everything
is agreed and David Davis is still talking about a backup ‘plan’ for no
agreement.
There is mounting and compelling evidence that the result in
June 2016 was worse than a farce – a result of admitted lies, xenophobia,
general fear and now it seems – dirty dealings by Cambridge Analytica headed by grubby privileged white bloke Alexander Nix. And that is before you consider the
growing row over the Leave campaign’s dodgy expenses – enter disastrous racist privileged white bloke Boris
Johnson stage left to deny it all. And yet – even those MPs who were, supposedly, against
ditching our EU allies and main trading partners at this crucial time in the
planet’s history, sing out the mantra loud and strong ‘we are respecting the
will of the people’ until you think you are going to go mad with the discordant,
jarring, tuneless dirge.
2-steps-behind-everyone- else Corbyn then sacked Owen Smith,
Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary. Smith, who had a front row view of just how
damaging Brexit will be for Ireland (N Ireland voted clearly to stay in
the EU) and especially for enduring peace, broke ranks and demanded a
referendum on the Brexit deal. Breaking ranks was something Corbyn did
repeatedly before he became Labour leader. Dithering Diane Abbot – possibly the only person on the Labour front bench who could make
Corbyn look competent – previously also called for a challenge to Brexit but
she keeps her position. But then this is the woman who failed to resign while serving
under Blair even though she claimed to be vehemently anti the Iraq invasion and said she would resign and
who chose to send her kid to a fee paying school.
Add to this the fact that after her disastrous snap
election, Theresa May spent £1bn – buying support from 10 DUP MPs in
order to remain in power and you have hubris and hypocrisy and fudge of monumental
proportions. The colossal contempt for candour is spectacular even by the
standards of modern politics.
Remember, this whole sorry mess of congealed Brexit spaghetti is
being served up by a Prime Minister who did not support Leave, who argued calmly and
strategically that the UK was better off inside the EU and who is currently
kept in power by a party whose constituents voted to Remain.