[ad_1]
Anyone surprised by the latest turn of events in Brexit in Britain has not been paying attention. Modeled in part on the Bannon-Trump experiment in the US, the Cummings-Johnson administration came to power on the basis of a single theme: leaving the EU, and a willingness to circumvent convention, tell lies, breaking laws, tearing down institutions and upsetting neighbors.
There has been a significant electorate in the UK for the toughest exits from the EU for years. Initially it was just Nigel Farage and his acolytes. Today it is the conservative party, purged of centrists, of those who are sulking and of anyone who has less than absolute loyalty to the leader.
There are unanswered questions about the decision to violate international law, to tear apart a Withdrawal Agreement whose ink has barely had time to dry. Because right now? What are the tactics, the objectives, that led Boris Johnson to repudiate the deal he negotiated and signed?
Johnson wrote on Saturday that it was a necessary step to preserve the integrity of the UK, allegedly from a future attack by the EU. This is a language that is normally heard from Western leaders when speaking of countries like Russia or North Korea. That Britain is now referring to the EU – “our friends,” Johnson once said in an earlier version of himself – in terms of outright aggression speaks volumes.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his political adviser Dominic Cummings. Photograph: Peter Summers / Getty Images
So what are they doing? We know Dominic Cummings’ appetite for “breaking things,” a pseudo-anarchist philosophy often found in playgrounds and student unions. Commentators baffle Johnson, the mayor of London, and Johnson, the prime minister. The first showed liberalism, cosmopolitanism and a carefree attitude halfway through, albeit with the occasional expensive trick. Johnson seemed the antithesis of the ideologue: he rarely showed much faith in anything other than himself. The exhausted-looking demagogue on display in Downing Street could not bear a greater contrast.
If they were really worried about a future EU attack, they would presumably never have signed the deal, with all its supposed threatening potential, in the first place. The idea that they didn’t read or understand it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Leaked civil service reports on the full implications of the Treaty, given to Johnson before signing, reveal that he knew what he was doing.
One might think that if the EU ever decided to strike, that might be the time to repudiate the Treaty. We could also wonder about a mindset that believes the EU would ever act in this way.
Maybe it really is just a bad bargaining tactic. That is what Johnson wants us to believe. It could simply be a replay of the original Withdrawal Agreement negotiation where threats and tough tactics prelude a relegation for Johnson, while at the same time declaring victory.
Bragging and boasting can mislead voters, win a referendum and a general election, but they cannot defeat the reality that Britain will be harmed by leaving the EU. It doesn’t matter how hard you try. Much of the blows are the result of fantasy finally meeting reality.
Britain is treated with world beatings on a daily basis. Dominic Raab once described Britain’s foreign aid program as a global beating. Johnson praises (but doesn’t pay) the NHS in exactly the same terms. A test and trace app that surpasses the world never made it off the Isle of Wight. The current global test and trace system is in shambles, and applicants are told that the nearest test center is hundreds of miles away. Now we have a shot at the moon: a massive test system that will cost £ 100 billion (€ 108 billion).
Method or madness? Another reason for violating international law is, apparently, the fear that EU state aid rules will thwart Cummings’ ambition to build a trillion-dollar technology company. Anyone who has tried to build a business of any kind will wish you luck. Because anyone with a shred of self-awareness knows how many possibilities and circumstances are involved in building businesses, successful or not.
The Internet was an accident, once it grew out of a 1960s American decision to build a distributed array of computing power that could withstand a nuclear attack. Each of Silicon Valley’s tech giants has idiosyncratic, sometimes bizarre stories. Each of which reveals how much serendipity plays a role in success. Bill Gates buys MS-DOS in 1981. Apple moves consumer products away from computers. How Amazon went from being an online bookseller to a cloud computing giant and a high street buster. Does anyone remember Netscape or Alta Vista? Does anyone remember Nokia? British Leyland? The idea that the UK government can pick and grow winning companies runs counter to Britain’s experience whenever it has tried to do exactly that.
Great Britain is still Great Britain with all its strengths and weaknesses. Brexit and Johnson-Cummings just took advantage of those weaknesses. My advice to the EU is that we let things develop. Giving in to Johnson’s demands is not a principle: the single market is worth protecting and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is watching closely to see how much backbone the EU has.
Therapists often warn about getting sucked into other people’s psychodramas. Let’s let this play out, we let them go without the deal that, truth be told, they don’t really want. It will not be the end of the story in any way. It will run and run.
[ad_2]