Proroguery of the worst kind
The Kay Burley Show (Sky News) T
HEY were on Sky News, talking about Northern Ireland. Talking about trouble of some kind involving Northern Ireland. Which is not good.
Indeed there are almost no circumstances in which it is good to have people on Sky News talking about Northern Ireland. These years of peace have been marked by an almost total absence of Northern Ireland from the world of breaking news, and there we were hoping it would stay, until the forces of nationalism rose again to bring it back.
It was English nationalism this time, but it is the same old malaise, which not only had them talking about Northern Ireland again on Sky News, it had them talking about it while they were actually in Northern Ireland — there was Kay Burley, “on the ground”, trying to explain to the folks on the mainland what it’s all about. The backstop and all that.
Maybe it was a bit late to be doing it, what with the possibility that our civilisation is about to be destroyed in a few weeks time, and yet you can also understand why the Brexiteers have been giving this one a swerve for a long time — even for decent people, talking about trouble of any kind involving Northern Ireland, is something you would prefer to avoid.
But now that there is absolutely no alternative, there was Kay Burley on the northern side of the Border, pointing to the southern side a few yards away, talking about it. There was Belcoo on one side, Blacklion on the other — and Kay Burley was talking about them, and talking to some of the people who live there... or at least to the people who represent the people who live there, on the Border between Fermanagh and Cavan.
She was sitting in a pub in Belcoo, talking to people on both sides of the divide, as we used to say, and then she was outside in the bleak light of a northern January, taking to other people who were not of the same persuasion.
And there we left them, because we just couldn’t face it any more, noting that by a weird coincidence, later in the day, Jacob Rees-Mogg called for parliament to be “prorogued” to prevent MPs from instructing the executive to prevent a nodeal Brexit. Now I can recall hearing that word “prorogue” used only once before, for any practical political purpose, and that was in connection with Northern Ireland — I can hear these distant voices calling for Stormont to be “prorogued” or some such demand which no doubt was as profoundly wrong-headed as whatever Rees-Mogg was advocating.
Whereas most of us are deeply averse to any revival of the language of those times, in that place, Rees-Mogg seemed to be drawing on it for inspiration.
Nor was there much consolation for us Remainers when the location shifted from the dreary steeples of Fermanagh to the snowy peaks of Switzerland, from Sky News to CNN, which had Tony Blair speaking from Davos.
Now, I realise that Tony has been off his game for some time, but he had seemed energised by the cause of Remain, so I’m wondering if he had thought this through — there he was, at this gathering of global titans, arguing against the Brexiteers, who make such noise about the “elites” and how they’re only codding the little people.
Which was all part of their Big Lie, of course, but still… Tony Blair speaking from Davos in favour of the EU would make the most ardent Remainer lose heart. And indeed the CNN interviewer Christiane Amanpour played a clip to Blair, of the author Anand Giridharadas describing Davos as “a family reunion for the people who, in my view, broke the modern world”.
You could say that he wanted Davos “prorogued”.
But that’s the way it’s been for a long time now, even a Blair who had once mastered the medium of TV, is transformed by the madness of Brexit into someone who looks like he’s playing for the other side.
And look, they may well be needing him in Northern Ireland again.