https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/08/boris-johnson-politics-britain-ireland-europe Boris Johnson has vandalised the political architecture of Britain, Ireland and Europe Fintan O’Toole It seems rather apt that Boris Johnson pocketed a huge advance from a publisher for a book about William Shakespeare but never got round to writing it. Johnson’s rise and fall hovers between cheap farce and theatre of the absurd. It has none of the grandeur of tragedy. The only line of Shakespeare’s that came to mind at his political demise was the first bit of Mark Antony’s elegy for Julius Caesar: “The evil that men do lives after them”. If the good that Johnson did in his public life is to be interred with his bones, the coffin will be light enough. But the evil will weigh heavily on the coming decades. This is what is so strange about Johnson’s place in history. It is hard to think of a figure at once so fatuous and so consequential, so flippant and yet so profoundly influential. His reign was short – its malign hangover will last long. He was a politician so incompetent that he could not keep himself in office even with a thumping parliamentary majority, a sycophantic press and a cabinet specially selected for slavish self-abasement. Yet he has remade the political architecture of Britain, of Ireland and of Europe. Johnson’s dark genius was to shape Britain in his own image. His roguishness has made it a rogue state, openly defiant of international law. His triviality has diminished it in the eyes of the world. His relentless mendacity and blatantly self-seeking abuse of power have ruined its reputation for democratic decency. His bad jokes made the country he professes to love increasingly risible. There is no pleasure in this strange story – not for the majority of British people, not for Ireland and not for Europe. It was another great English writer, John Donne, who wrote that “If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less”. Britain was never a mere clod, and Europe is indeed the less for its departure. A dense but delicate network of connections and relationships – with Ireland as well as with the continent – has been cut or badly frayed. As Europe faces two overlapping existential crises (the climate crisis and the invasion of Ukraine), Johnson’s Britain has made itself a source of further disruption and uncertainty. The disgrace is that, for Johnson, all of this is so trifling. His lust for power was real and deep, at least as demanding as his other, more bodily appetites. But what, in the end, did he really mean by power? His understanding of it was always that of the juvenile delinquent. On Desert Island Discs in 2005, he spoke of the pleasure of making trouble, which motivated his mendaciously anti-European journalism: “Everything I wrote from Brussels, I found was sort of chucking these rocks over the garden wall and I listened to this amazing crash from the greenhouse next door … and it really gave me this, I suppose, rather weird sense of power.” It is indeed a weird idea of power. The soundtrack to Johnson’s political career is the crash of breaking glass as he chucks rocks over the walls of the neighbours across the Irish Sea and the Channel. The construction products of Johnson’s imagination – Boris Island 1, the garden bridge in London, the fabulous bridge that was going to connect Scotland to Northern Ireland – were fantasies whose very grandiosity made them infantile. But at least they never happened. It was the destructive side, that pleasure in political vandalism, that became real – a reality in which Britain seems likely to be trapped for a long time after his departure. The worst aspect of this is his reckless sabotaging of the Good Friday agreement. It is possible to imagine that Johnson was smug enough to think that both British and EU political institutions were sufficiently robust to withstand his own cynical abuse of them. But surely even he must have had a basic understanding that peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland is a delicate and radically unfinished business. He must have had some inkling that this is one place where the consequences of stirring up tribal identity politics were all too obvious. But he did it anyway. He deliberately trivialised the problems of the Irish border, comparing it to the line between two traffic zones in London. He dismissed Northern Ireland as the tail that was wagging the Brexit dog – an irritating appendage, in other words. He played with the delusions of his admirers in the Democratic Unionist party, egging them on or abandoning them as the mood took him. He lied repeatedly about the meaning of the protocol he negotiated. He introduced legislation deliberately designed to make Northern Ireland a source of open-ended conflict with the EU. This achieved two things. It brought relations between Britain and Ireland to their lowest point for decades. And it thrilled autocrats everywhere. Johnson made the rule of law and the honouring of treaties into another of his bad jokes. On 1 July this year, Johnson tweeted that “25 years ago, we made a promise to the people of Hong Kong. We intend to keep it.” The Chinese embassy in Dublin retweeted this with a reply: “2 years ago, we made a promise to the Northern Ireland Protocol (sic). We are determined to break it.” The terrible thing is that the Chinese were, in this respect, right: Johnson’s behaviour has given them licence to ignore the obligations they entered into 25 years ago. This is the level to which Johnson has reduced Britain on the world stage, making it fair game for the taunts of tyrants. Even while Johnson was doing good by supporting Ukraine, he was simultaneously giving Vladimir Putin grounds to believe that the west only pretends to believe in the rule of law. This descent is not just bad for the UK. It is bad for the whole democratic world. Johnson turned one of the great historic democracies into a state in which his own cynicism, recklessness and lack of honour became official policy. In doing so, he has allowed every enemy of democracy to say that it is a hollow system whose rules and values are a sham. It isn’t – and there are those who will continue to fight to defend and deepen it. The great question that faces Britain is whether it can rejoin that side of the fight, as an honourable, law-bound and serious presence in international affairs. It is very hard to see an answer coming from within the ranks of those who allowed Johnson to make such a mockery of their own country. The harm that Johnson has inflicted will not be undone quickly – or by those who found it intolerable only when it threatened their own immediate interests.
Ulster Loyalists July 4 KAT = Kill All Taigs ie Kill All Catholics A guy died building the above, he fell from it
Through a recency and Western bias, probably in my view. He has no principles whatsoever. Even if you dislike someone’s policies i.e. many of Trump’s, at least there is something there to debate. I’d struggle to think of anyone like Boris, maybe Berlusconi? Though he had some positions.
The only position Trump has ever held in his entire life is, “How will this get me more money?” That’s it. He doesn’t give a single shit about anyone or anything else.
Nah, Trump has a policy- “America First”. More aggressive on trade (including more protectionism), stronger borders, recalibration of NATO spending and less US overseas influence etc You can abhor elements of it but there is a position. Boris Johnson literally wrote two pieces on Brexit and decided at 11.59 which way to go based on what he perceived the benefits would be to him. They couldn’t have been any more different in substance. Johnson will say whatever is necessary at the time to try and further his position and get out of tangles. He doesn’t have any beliefs whatsoever. That is no to say one is better than the other but it is what it is.
He has no principles to debate. He exempted countries from his policies if he had business interests there. It’s never about any kind of principle. It’s always about money. Always.
all of this was predicated on his self-image of being a better negotiator than those fools who came before him. He didn’t care about substance at all, except that he needed visas for his farm workers and Ivanka needed access to the Chinese market and Chinese IP.
You’re completely neglecting Trump’s motivations. Each and every one of these policy positions you have stated vanish like a fart in the wind if he determines there’s another direction that better benefits him or his Charmin-soft ego. These aren’t principles, or at least they’re certainly not principles Trump holds (because he has none beyond propping up the man in the mirror, his ego and his wallet).
Politicians are self serving, and Trump far more than others. But Boris is no. 1. There is absolutely no comparison between the Brexit position and on anything Trump did.
Trump killed hundreds of thousands of Americans, including Stan Chera and almost himself, because he didn’t want the stock market to go down because he thought it would negatively impact his reelection chances.
Like at least Boris Johnson had the wherewithal to change course after his early Covid policies were a disaster
The U.K. and the US’s Covid stats are not remarkably different, in fact very close. The U.K. has suffered 181k deaths from Covid thus far, there were just 28k deaths by the start of May 2020, meaning the vast majority of U.K. mortality came well after the herd immunity policy had been dumped in late March 2020. The UK’s Herd Immunity Covid policies are given far too much airing, it’s barely relevant to the entirety of the Covid story there. More interesting is the early days of Covid in January where the U.K. like the US and Europe completely failed. In terms of the overall pandemic, Johnson had significantly more control than Trump did on his own country (Johnson was still comparing himself to the Jaws mayor in September 2020 fyi). That is not to say one was better than the other but the summary point here is that the Covid results in both countries were not wildly different. There is simply no comparison to the Brexit flip flop. It is the most all encompassing change to a Western economy and society since World War II.
The US has 12.5% more deaths per 100k than the UK despite what should have been tremendous advantages in ability to mitigate the spread (and significant data integrity concerns about undercounting) and that’s a figure driven hard by Trump and the cultural response he led, and saved from being far worse only by the actions of governors and local leaders fighting that direction, for which part several of them faced varying levels of insurrection by the dipshits he gave inspiration to. Johnson made an unprincipled choice about a stupid decision that had already been made by the voters. You’re right, they’re not comparable.
12.5% is not a large amount. This is largely attributable to the US having an inferior vaccination rate. Trump can be criticised for elements of that but he is not the sole cause of anti vaxx sentiment in the US. We could get into the weeds on any aspect of the U.K. vs. US. - The U.K. PM has significantly more power to govern than the US President. If Biden was in power all through Covid he would have encountered the exact same issues he did when he ultimately got in- State power, more acute separation of powers etc - the U.K. is largely an island, it shares one land border with one country that took Covid very seriously - the U.K. changed their rules to account for only Covid days only within 28 days of contracting it, thus your data integrity point levels up https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/22/uk-official-covid-death-toll-undercounted-fatalities - conversely of course, we could talk about things you reference above on US advantages- less dense, ability to have more self contained trade, slightly younger population. There are loads and loads of factors going either way. All of the above are factors but all in all, 12.5% is not significant. Your central point was that Johnson handled it better after an initial hiccup, you would be laughed at in the U.K. I think this gets away from the central point here.
if Trump is not the "sole cause", he presides over and/or has dominion over the anti-vax forces in the USA. His cult of personality is that strong.
It isn’t statistically significant when there are so many variables involved. If you are comparing the US to New Zealand then it would be. You are comparing two countries that did very badly in the pandemic, putting two two turds against one another.
Large numbers (due to doing poorly) increase confidence in the statistical difference. Yes, 12.5% is a big difference.
And similar the cult of personality of Boris Johnson (seriously Google #BackBoris) meant many took his cavalier attitude to Covid early on and right throughout. Johnson compared himself to the Jaws mayor in September 2020 again. In September, in the middle of intense debate within Downing Street over whether to introduced a second lockdown, Mr Johnson is said to have expressed regret over the first lockdown and likened himself to Larry Vaughn, the mayor of Amity in Jaws who orders the beaches to stay open despite the shark attacks, The Times reported. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-jaws-mayor-beach-b1838049.html?amp The U.K. then delayed a lockdown. The Alpha variant that spawned in Kent arose directly from large scale spread. Until the US which had harder border control, the U.K. had little to no border controls. His government were blamed for the spread of the Delta variant. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/johnson-variant-keir-starmer-gmb-b1880277.html There’s significant revisionist history going on here. Again this is comparing two turds. For the record, Trump will go down in history as significantly worse. I merely talked about positions and beliefs.
It isn’t. We are comparing incomplete data and key drivers including age demographics, border controls, density, stats control etc Better data that actually shows the US significantly worse off is excess deaths, a far better metric. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker If you look at the tends though, the divergence starts at vaccines. In fact that U.K. was in line with the US. I said Trump deserves some blame for this, but not all. Does Johnson deserve criticism for failing to convince many BAME people to get vaccinated who were subsequently most hit post vaccine deaths wise? I don’t think it’s his major failing during the pandemic. I think trying to attribute success or a road to Damascus moment for Johnson on Covid policy is nonsensical post March 2020. He had significantly more power than any US President.
Jay Jay Okocha Another fun Loyalist feud from years ago where fortunately only shitheads died. It's just genuinely hilarious how anything happened when the people "representing" loyalist communties were Johnny Adair (#1 glue sniffer), Jim Gray, etc. Despite any other differences I may have David Ervine was a million times the genuine man who actually gave a shit as compared to so many of the others, legitimately a shame he's gone. The inevitable push for a united Ireland was fast forwarded thanks to brexit which I'm sure many dumbass Northern Ireland loyalist reps were all about at the time.
Has there even been a big push though? Sinn Fein/SDLP vote share isn’t much changed. Unionism has definitely lost votes to Alliance party, but even though they’re not explicitly Unionist anymore, seems very much a status quo party. Don’t seem type to be wanting a border poll.
a quick scan of the first two pages and its mostly chuds and the chud adjacent (libertarian fart sniffers), also its impressive how well the propaganda worked on low info peoples as its being repeated verbatim by many also being reminded swimfan exists is unpleasant
Too fucking hot, lads. I got about three hours of sleep, just laying in bed staring at the ceiling sweating.
One of the main arguments in the last Ref was that Scotland would he left outside of the EU. I still don’t think the Scots would do it but it is the quickest way to a UI via the breakup of the Union.
Yeah, I know it was, along with the currency issue, one of the two main arguments. Just saying the camps seem pretty settled. Not a lot of movement either way in opinion polls.