Across the Border

Brandon Lewis and Boris Johnson both promised last year there would be no border down the Irish Sea and no extra paperwork would be necessary. Michael Gove is now going cap-in-hand to the EU for an extension which, when suggested by the EU in summer, Boris expressly rejected. Why is Gove requesting an extension? Because there is indeed a border down the Irish Sea and extra paperwork is causing problems due to unpreparedness. 

Boris is now threatening to invoke Article 16, something he and the right wing press were incandescent about when the EU nearly did it a week ago, - yet not a murmur from that same press when Boris threatens it. In fact, the DUP and Nigel Farage are egging him on.

The irony is that Theresa May's backstop was a solution, but Boris and the DUP voted against it. Daniel Hannan, who said it was in conceivable that we'd leave the Single Market and the Customs Union, has meanwhile been booted upstairs into the House of Lords for some inexplicable reason.

People supporting our government of incompetents appear to relish being lied to and let them get away with it. They're using all manner of logical contortions to blame the EU, when the UK helped write the rules on 3rd countries and Boris himself signed off on the deal. Did he not scrutinise it? Probably not - the government has 'previous' on this.

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the vaccine pre-purchase, rather than being a strategic masterstroke, was nothing more than a very fortuitous fluke. Given the government's (and Boris') catalogue of disastrous decisions, it's rather far-fetched to believe it had a moment of lucidity - even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

The fact vast swathes of the electorate turn a blind eye to industrial scale lying and incompetence shows, without a shred of doubt, that emotions are governing their opinions, rather than rational thought. Emotions sway elections - this is a proven fact in political science - and can lead to catastrophic consequences and people voting against their best interests. Charismatic demagogues are skilled in oratory, flattery and invective, evasive in discussing vital issues, promising everything to everybody, appealing to the passions rather than the reason of the public and arousing racial, religious, and class prejudices in a battle against a fictitious 'elite'. They are people whose lust for power, without recourse to principle or scruple, leads them to seek to become masters of the masses.