Brexit brinkmanship?
THIS column has been giving Boris a bit of stick lately (and rightly so), but just when I thought he had totally lost the plot, he unexpectedly rediscovers his bulldozing best and sets the EUloving UK establishment off in an epileptic fit of rage. Brexit is back in the headlines (it never actually went away, it was just drowned in a tidal wave of Covid panic).
So, what great Brexit crime has Boris committed, to bring two political “blasts from the past” together (Tony Blair and John Major), in a bond of unity they never managed to display when they were in power? He has simply reminded the likes of the EU’s Michel Barnier that UK is now an independent, sovereign country and they had better get serious about accepting the fact, if they want to avoid a “no deal” Brexit. Quite right too.
According to the two very “ex” prime ministers, Boris is “embarrassing our nation”. What tripe. He’s showing some guts. His alleged crime is to assert the fundamental right of any truly sovereign nation to unilaterally decide what customs arrangements apply within its own borders, without interference from outside bodies. In this case, specifically between one part of the UK and another, namely Northern Ireland and Great Britain (the mainland). To do otherwise would fundamentally undermine the Union between the UK’s constituent parts, something the EU seem intent on doing.
Blair and Major say Boris’s aim would breach UK’s international treaty obligations. Yes, it would, marginally, but it wouldn’t be the first time UK has done it. When the UK government rightly continued to deny convicted prisoners the right to vote in elections, we did precisely that, defying a European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) order, whose Convention the UK is a signatory to and a FOUNDING member of. Guess what? The diplomatic roof didn’t cave in on us, nor did “our standing in the world” suffer one jot.
Let us look at the reality of where the current Brexit talks are.
Due to the EU’s determination to ignore the fact the UK has effectively LEFT the EU already, the talks are going nowhere, because the EU cannot believe that the UK would actually go so far as to risk a “no deal” Brexit. They think we will cave in at the last minute, allowing EU fishing boats to continue stripping our territorial waters of our fish and allowing Brussels to determine our internal customs rules. It’s time for Boris to make them think again. That is what he is doing. The EU have to believe that if push comes to shove, Boris will press the “no deal” Brexit button (and he will). His finger is hovering over it as I write.
This current Brexit furore is all about bringing the EU to accept reality, whether they like it or not. That way a deal is still possible. In no other way will it come about. Deal or no deal, especially in the long term, the UK WILL benefit. That is what the EU fear most. The way they are behaving, that is precisely what the EU is going to get — a good dose of bone-shaking reality. The UK has already secured a trade deal with Japan, far better than the EU secured, despite talk by the UK faint hearts of it being “impossible” in such a short time scale. How wrong can they get?
It gets better. There was even more music to my ears to follow. He is threatening to “opt out” of some aspects of the interference of the ECHR in British law. Thanks to that supreme wrecker of the United Kingdom and one-time would-be “European President”, Tony Blair, we suffer, almost uniquely in Europe, from ECHR rulings being put directly into UK law by his “Human Rights Act” (not bad for a man whose wife is a human rights lawyer). Personally, I’d repeal the damned thing, but Boris is merely suggesting “amendments” to it. Fine, it’s a start.
He is determined to make it easier for the UK government to deport illegal immigrants without them having recourse to the claim that their “human rights” are being infringed by deportation. I say “what about the human rights of everyone else, including all those many immigrants who are now British nationals and came to UK legally”?
How do you think they feel when they see that those who have NOT jumped through all the legal hoops are being allowed to stay? How do you think the average
Briton feels when they see the UK’s effectively open doors being swamped by mass migration, never before equalled in Britain’s tolerant and generally welcoming history? They are rightly furious, to an extent that threatens the UK’s social cohesion, for law-abiding people of all races (thanks a lot Tony). Well done Boris, you are listening again.
This week, despite being up to his eyeballs in Covid confusion, Boris has, at last, shown his mettle again. He’s been a busy lad, remembering why he was elected. That damned Human Rights Act is also responsible for British soldiers being charged with murder, for merely doing their duty in Northern Ireland or Afghanistan, when in a firefight, or believing themselves to be under fire. He is to bring forward amendments to deal with that as well.
Oh, the PC world will go bananas, they will froth at the mouth and declare the death of the rule of law. No, it will be the death of laws that protects the guilty and deny the right of the innocent to go about their lives in freedom from fear. It is long overdue.
This week, he also told his Cabinet to either get behind what he is trying to achieve with all this or get out. About time too (I feel a government reshuffle coming on). Either way, all those former Labour safe seats across northern England and Wales in particular, will be watching and recognising that this IS the Boris they voted for. I couldn’t agree with them more. Those who don’t like it, hard luck. You lost.