PM picks Team UK but players seek a transfer
BORIS Johnson is cynically hijacking the long-awaited inquiry into the pandemic to save his political skin.
He knows that the Conservative and Unionist Party – to give it its full name – will never forgive him if the United Kingdom breaks up.
So he’s dragging Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland into a bogus “Team UK” of nation leaders to bolster the failing Union.
Nicola Sturgeon, Mark Drakeford and whichever unfortunate wins today’s poll to lead the Democratic Ulster Unionists will be “consulted” about the inquiry.
Hmmm. If they fall for this political stroke, I will be surprised. They have nothing to gain from dancing to Westminster’s tune.
The timing of the inquiry – it doesn’t even start for a year – is designed to get Johnson successfully through an early general election. That’s why he’s abolishing fixed-term Parliaments.
Meanwhile, he thinks he can neuter the forces of nationalism north of the border with a Bojobung of billions of English pounds to the Scots. But under what passes for his leadership, the United Kingdom has never looked more disunited.
After their landslide victory in Holyrood parliament polls, the SNP are bellowing for independence.
Northern Ireland is at a crossroads. The more Unionists cling desperately to the skirts of mother UK, the closer Irish unity beckons.
Even Wales, last stronghold of Labour government, wants more freedom and political responsibility.
Add to that divisions between city and towns, and towns and country, and North versus South, and Brexiteers agin Remainers and you have the perfect recipe for the death of a centuries-old state.
It won’t happen quickly, it may not happen at all. But the odds in favour are mounting, and our Machiavellian premier is driving them up.
Johnson is reviled in Scotland, ignored in Wales and branded a traitor in Northern Ireland for his Brexit trade barrier in the Irish Sea.
In childhood, he wanted to be “king of the world”. He is fast becoming the elected Mayor of England, nothing more.
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Timing of the inquiry aims to get Johnson through an early election