Tags

, , , , , , ,

This week Boris Johnson has been busy with his conference. I would call it the Tory Party conference, but with his heartfelt promises to wreck the economy being met by adoring applause from the audience, I can only assume that he and all the delegates had flown in from Planet Zogg, while the real Tory leader and all the genuine party members had been tied up and shut in a very large broom cupboard. 

He has also been putting the finishing touches to his plot to circumvent the Benn Act and deliver on his promise of a no-hope Brexit.

I feel I must say something about Boris and his determination to thwart the Benn Act:  whatever I think about Brexit, it is only humane to support him in his quest: it would be too tragic for his Brexit Bus Tour to get a no-star review on Ego-Trip-Adviser because of something foisted on him by a bunch of democratically elected MPs. Nobody would book him as an unelected Prime Minister ever again. 

It would be utterly churlish to expect him to have come up with a workable deal before he assured the Tory Party members that he could deliver Brexit: he had no other way of being absolutely sure that they would vote him in as leader.    

And it is obvious to absolutely everyone with half a brain – and this is the time for people with half a brain – that if his back-of-a-fag-packet solution to the backstop fails, with its two Irish borders where there were to be none (it’s called a bog-off) and reliance on technology currently in production with a group of hard-working and talented unicorns, it will be entirely because the EU is being difficult and inflexible.

But there will be no extension of the 31st October deadline if his deal fails, despite the Benn Act making it legally obligatory. Steve Baker, leader of the ERG, assures us of this – even if only a few days extra are needed to finalise a few details.  

It is so refreshing that in these impersonal and ruthless times, where the individual seems to be an unimportant cog in a globalised, corporate world, there’s a group of people willing to throw an entire country to the dogs to defend one innocent man’s ego. 

Steve Baker assured us that there was a way round the Benn Act: he didn’t know what it was, and he didn’t want to know – because if it got out, the Remainers would stop at nothing to prevent the Prime Minister taking the country out of the EU without a deal. 

Although the government has now given written assurances to the Scottish courts that they will request an extension from the EU if they can’t get a deal in time. 

Which might be because that is exactly what Johnson intends to do. 

Or it might be that he wants to hoodwink parliament into dropping their guard, before rolling out the loophole.  Because it is quite clearly the bounden duty of an unelected Prime Minister to thwart the will of the elected representatives of the people, in order to defend the will of the people.  How else can democracy be upheld.

The people may not be quite so pleased with the consequences of their will being carried out, and everyone is greatly concerned with all those at the bottom of the economic heap. 

It may be an unpopular suggestion, but I think we must also extend a sympathetic hand to all those billionaires who have put so much time and effort, to say nothing of their millions of soon-to-be-worthless pounds, into turning the country into a tax-haven so they don’t have to live so far away – people don’t understand how homesick these people get living in the Cayman Islands – only to realise that they have turned their country into a wasteland.

And when they are longing to escape to Monaco – crowded though it is, it would still have bin collections – they discover they can’t, thanks to the end of freedom of movement. 

Heartstrings, my friends. Heartstrings.

But we must not get too gloomy: Johnson was adamant in his conference speech that the country was ready for a no-deal Brexit, and he’s a man of his word: when I was driving along the M20 – I wanted to do it while I still could: photograph the moving traffic to show future generations and all that – I was pleased to see signs telling drivers that we would be leaving the EU at the end of the month and they might need to have different paperwork ready for the 1stNovember. 

The signs didn’t say anything about the fact that nobody could yet tell them what that paperwork would be. 

Or that they should make sure to pack a nightie and enough food and drink for several days.  But it’s so important not to get hung up on details.

They’re nearly as bad for Brexit as experts.