Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…
The key sentences from the Guardian’s analysis:
It is a mark of the tragicomic nature of Mr Johnson’s government that a week of infighting within No 10 dominates the news at a time of national emergency when hundreds are dying every day from a dangerous disease. Mr Cummings gets to walk away while Britain is stuck with the damage he has wrought.
So Trump has been defeated. A good day for democracy.
However, I fear that, with 70 million people having voted for him, the US remains deeply divided, and the next four years are not going to be easy. At least we will be spared the torrent of rancid tweets and lies that have been flowing from the White House these last four horrendous years.
Many Americans will be breathing a huge sigh of relief, and will be feeling the same emotions as this CNN commentator:
As Carol Anderson writes, in the end, millions of Americans were not prepared to let democracy die on their watch.
Dear US citizens, for all our sakes make the change happen on November 3rd.
A little balm for the soul at this moment of crisis…
And to my American readers… Vote! All our futures depend on it!
It all seems so inevitable that Donald Trump would succumb because of hubris, and his blatant disregard of the facts.
And it remains difficult not to feel schadenfreude and not to laugh at the Covid Joker himself. As Marina Hyde says:
God knows, it’s excruciatingly hard to chirp “Get well soon!” to this particular patient, but … get well soonish. Those of us who want to escape the cesspool Trump has helped drag the world into will wish him a better time with the virus than the one to which he blithely condemned so many of those he was elected to serve. Each to their own, but I’m against all forms of the death penalty, karmic or otherwise.
But still, it is what it is, eh, Donald?
The room in this case being in Number 10, Downing Street. With the threat to break International Law, the UK Government seems intent on making the UK an international pariah. Chris Grey, over at his Brexit Blog has some choice words on the whole debacle. It’s a must-read.
And now Boris Johnson is seeking to blame Brussels for an issue of his own making. The man is incompetent, and has no shame whatsoever.
Addendum: and all praise to Marina Hyde for her satirical evisceration of this bunch of clowns. Thanks for making me laugh, otherwise I would be weeping at what the UK has come to.
The news that Tony Abbott has been appointed as a UK Trade Advisor would seem to confirm my suspicion that the UK government is resolutely determined to achieve a no-deal situation with the EU by the end of the year.
I feel that the phrase “UK Government” is rapidly achieving oxymoronic status. If you want to laugh about this latest turn of events, then I can recommend First Dog on the Moon. If, like me, you feel like crying about the whole Brexit clusterfuck, then I can recommend Chris Grey’s Brexit Blog for a forensic flensing of the whole sorry saga.
It amazes me that the US has people like this, yet they still manage to pick Trump for President…
Boris Johnson’s defence of his political adviser Dominic Cummings is, in a word, unfuckingbelievable.
As John Crace so rightly observes, it is now clear who is running the UK – and it isn’t Boris Johnson.
One law for the little people, and another law for your boss, eh, Boris?
Addendum 27 May 2020: the ever-dependable Marina Hyde eviscerates both Cummings and Johnson; whilst Chris Grey, over at his Brexit Blog, makes similar points about the paradox of populism – in less caustic tones, but none the less salient for all that.
It’s the day after Brexit, and I’m still feeling depressed, and angry, about the whole sorry situation. I’ve been reading messages of farewell published in today’s Guardian from my fellow Europeans, and they have put into words the emotions I am experiencing. Two writers in particular capture my feelings, as these extracts may illustrate:
Carlo Rovelli (theoretical physicist)
What breaks my heart in Britain leaving the European project is the dark message that Brexit delivers to the entire planet: every nation for itself, instead of collaborating for the common good; everybody making its own rules, instead of searching for common ground; every group competing with the others, instead of solving the common problems together.
Agnieszka Holland (film director)
Do you really believe that turning your backs on the continent will hold off ecological catastrophe, the waves of migrants, artificial intelligence, the internet revolution or women’s aspirations? Do you believe that globalisation and unfettered capitalism as conducted by China or Trump’s America will give you more affluence and sovereignty than belonging to a community of Europeans, who can achieve any kind of success only by working together, and who are at least trying their best to maintain the values of freedom, equality, fraternity, solidarity, justice and human rights; the rights of all living creatures; and responsibility for the future of the planet?
Adhering to these values is the only thing that can save humanity from sliding into an abyss of evil; we became familiar with this in the terrible 20th century, and the European Union was meant to inoculate us against the temptation to return to dark times. And for many years, together, it worked.
Aren’t you ashamed to be the first to back away from hope? Can you see an alternative? Do you really think that once we’ve broken our voluntary ties things will be just as they were before? No, they will not. So I cannot wish you all the best. I won’t say “Goodbye and good luck.” Because I’m furious with you. I really do like you – your people, landscape, gardens and moorlands; your history, culture and art; your unique British manner, even in its debased form; your humour, eccentricity and bravery. But I am sure you are making a mistake that we’re all going to pay for – you are sure to, but so are we. I am afraid everyone’s going to pay equally for the lies, cowardice and arrogance of the few.
Also in today’s Guardian is Ian McEwan’s withering summary of Brexit. Well worth reading and reflecting on.
I sincerely hope that my fellow countrymen reflect on what they have done, and that this ignominious decision will come, in time, to be reversed. It will probably take at least a generation, and I am very likely to be long dead, but we Europeans will be waiting.
For me, today is a day of sadness. Britain has turned its back on Europe and is determined to retreat to being an insular nation once more. As an act of self-harm, this takes some beating.
And whilst Johnson and his government may crow that they’ve got Brexit done, the reality is that the hard work now starts, with the hammering out of new treaties and legal frameworks – with just 11 months to go until the end of the transition period. It is also clear from recent statements from the likes of Sajid Javid that the British government either hasn’t got a clue, or is being economical with the verité (as depressingly usual).
Like Chris Grey, I mourn the country I have lost, and fear for the one to come.
So Boris Johnson says: “Let the Healing Begin…” in his statement outside No. 10. Reminds me of Thatcher’s statement on the steps of No. 10 in 1979:
“Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope”.
Didn’t happen then. Won’t happen now. I despair for the future of the UK.
The full text of Sir Ivan Rogers’ lecture given at the University of Glasgow recently is here. He is both a careful analyst of events and a bellwether foretelling a future that is very likely to play out in the agonies of the Brexit to come.
With just nine days to go, First Dog on the Moon has published a handy voting guide to the UK general election. It’s definitely worth reading. Though I fear that his advice will be disregarded, and the current gang of “shits, charlatans and shysters”* will be returned to govern.
If there is a Tory majority, it will largely be because of their endlessly repeated slogan that they will “get Brexit done”. This means that Parliament will pass the Withdrawal Agreement, and Britain will leave the EU on 31 January 2020. However, Brexit is certainly not done, since the UK enters a new transition period during which the terms and conditions of multiple trade agreements and legislative frameworks have to be put in place. All of which leaves the future as uncertain as ever.
If you want a more in-depth analysis on what the future might hold, and the stances of the various players, then Chris Grey’s Brexit Blog and “What would ‘getting Brexit done’ mean?” is an excellent, and highly recommended, place to start.
*with acknowledgements to John Crace
That is how a number of letters begin that are published in today’s Guardian. From a range of public figures, they set out what Europe means to them.
I’m a Manxman by birth, but I’ve spent half my life living in the Netherlands. I owe a lot to Europe, just like these letter writers, and it distresses me to realise that many of my fellow Britons are hell-bent intent on closing boundaries, rather than opening them.
As far as I am concerned, the Guardian’s First Dog On The Moon sums up the clusterfuck that is Brexit very well indeed.
I see that the Guardian has updated its style guide to introduce terms that more accurately describe the environmental crises facing the world, using “climate emergency, crisis or breakdown” and “global heating” instead of “climate change” and “global warming”.
All the political insanity that is currently rampaging through the world at the moment surely pales into insignificance compared to the existential threat that is the ongoing climate crisis? Indeed the latter will only exacerbate the former as time goes on.
A few months back, I read The Uninhabitable Earth, by David Wallace-Wells. Yesterday, I read in one sitting, We Are The Weather, by Jonathan Safran Foer. Wallace-Wells is a journalist, Foer a novelist. As you might expect, the books are very different in style, whilst both dealing with the subject of the climate crisis.
Foer’s book is a mixture of styles in itself, ranging from thought-provoking essays, to shocks to the brain from short chapters giving lists of factoids, to a “dispute with the soul” – a dialogue with himself over why it is that we seem unable to deal with the fact of the climate crisis. That’s all of us, whether you accept the science or deny it.
Foer offers a path to help mitigate the extent of the crisis: switch to a plant-based diet from a meat-based one. The link between farming animals and the climate crisis is the backbone of his book, and he makes a persuasive case. Livestock are the leading source of methane emissions, whilst nitrous oxide is emitted by livestock urine, manure, and the fertilisers used for growing crops. Nitrous oxide has significant global warming potential as a greenhouse gas. On a per-molecule basis, considered over a 100-year period, nitrous oxide has 298 times the atmospheric heat-trapping ability of carbon dioxide.
The Netherlands has just woken up to this inconvenient truth about nitrous oxide and other nitrogen compounds. We currently have what is known as the Stikstofcrisis (the nitrogen crisis), which arose this year when permit applications for an estimated 18,000 construction and infrastructure projects were stopped. Too high a concentration of these nitrogen compounds leads to a deterioration of nature and to a loss of biodiversity. A reported 61 percent of the nitrogen compounds produced comes from agriculture, with intensive livestock farming being one of the most important sources. So the farmers are up in arms about this, seeing the government placing the blame for the crisis on their shoulders. There have been protests and demonstrations.
The trouble is, we simply can’t go on as we did before. Things will have to change, but that process will be a painful one, whatever we do.
A very perceptive piece by Joris Luyendijk in the Guardian today. His thesis is that
The UK now seems to be the country whose government lies about nonexistent negotiations with the EU while threatening to renege on its outstanding financial obligations – often misrepresented as the “divorce bill”.
and:
The dominant four newspapers in Britain by circulation are the Sun, the Daily Mail, the Sun on Sunday and the Mail on Sunday, with the more measured but equally pro-Brexit Sunday Times coming in fifth. Each of these publications has been brainwashing its readers with fake news about the EU for years – in some cases, decades – while building up pro-Brexit politicians and stoking divisions. Terms such as “betrayal”, “surrender”, “plots by traitors” and “enemies of the people” are on the front pages routinely. The top 10 British papers by paid circulation does not feature any pro-European newspaper, unless you count the Daily Mirror. It does feature Boris Johnson’s mouthpiece, the Daily Telegraph, and the triumphantly nasty Daily Star. It is a depressing tally, scarcely improved by knowing how many people rely on social media for their news.
Depressing is not the half of it. It’s the realisation that my fellow Britons swallow these lies from Boris Johnson, his colleagues and the Tory press, and believe them wholeheartedly. I feel ashamed to be British and fear for the future of the UK. My touchstone is that I also hold Dutch nationality, and hence I am also a citizen of the EU. It is the lifeline to which I can cling. It remains to be seen whether UK citizens will be able to do the same.
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