Britain’s loony right fear betrayal – let us hope so
Posted By: November 05, 2016
Tom Collins . Irish News Belfast). Saturday, November 5, 2016
You couldn’t make it up. The loony right successfully outmaneuvers a weak and spineless prime minister to secure a vote on Britain’s future membership of the European Union.
It wins with a promise that the electorate will be able to ‘take back control’ from faceless bureaucrats. The EU referendum is all about sovereignty, they claim.
But Theresa May’s definition of sovereignty is any act that bypasses parliament – using instead the royal prerogative to impose her will.
May’s determination to ignore MPs – denying them the right to vote on triggering Article 50 to leave the EU – was anti-democratic in the extreme. The leader of a tin pot dictatorship would have been embarrassed to try that trick.
Enter the judiciary – robed and bewigged – to stop her in her tracks.
It says something about the state of democracy in the UK that it takes three unelected high court judges to leap to its defense.
And then the loony right turns on them. Incandescent with rage, Nigel Farage said: “I worry that betrayal may be near at hand.” Let us hope so.
The government says it will appeal to the Supreme Court. If it loses there it can always try the European Court, I suppose.
The Brexit vote was an act of madness. The consequences are already making themselves manifest. Even the price of Marmite is on the rise as a result.
I respect the vote in June.
But there’s nothing that says stupid decisions cannot be re-examined and overturned. Pro-Europeans have every right to use whatever tools are at their disposal to ensure Britain stays in Europe.
I’d like to preface my next observation by saying that some of my best friends are political journalists. I don’t know what the collective noun for them is. I suspect it is something like ‘A Conspiracy…’
They are always putting two and two together and making five. And I have the suspicion that often they are writing for one another. (I am sure I do them an injustice.)
For some reason, right-wing journos are always more entertaining than those on the left. Comrades are not allowed to laugh. The New Statesman, for example, with its socialist roots, is deathly dull. The Spectator, on the other hand, once edited by Boris Johnson, is invariably good for a laugh.
This week it held its annual parliamentarian of the year awards. Gone are the days when Northern Ireland members were in contention. I’m sure their day will come.
This year May picked up the top award. But it was Boris Johnson who inadvertently let the cat out of the Brexit bag with a Freudian slip of monstrous proportions.
Accepting the award for Comeback of the Year he said he was sure the Brexit negotiations would be “a Titanic success”. Cue Celine Dion. May buried her head in her hands as guests screamed out: “It sank.”
