Official Communication from the UFA

Posted by Jim on September 5, 2019

Simplistic view of Europe has pushed UK into Brexit abyss

Posted by Jim on September 4, 2019

Johnson leads myopic world view where complexity of EU is bulldozed by colonial will …
… ignorance and free-trading powerhouse delusions have made him and his Brexiteers unable to comprehend how Ireland can stand up to Great Britain.

Ian Dunt is editor of political news website politics.co.uk)

You can predict the next action of Boris Johnson’s government quite easily. Simply imagine the approach which would show the least moral, intellectual or political understanding of the situation, and that is the one he will follow.

His strategy with parliament this week is to try and bully it into submission. He shows precisely no understanding of – or interest in – his opponents. He has no capacity to try and provide a compromise position. And he has overestimated his own leverage. It is, in short, a domestic rerun of the Brexiteer’s miscalculations over the “Backstop.”

The Brexit debate often gets bogged down in technical details – parliamentary standing orders, customs procedures, principles of regulatory alignment. But at its heart there is an emotional battle taking place between two different views of the world.

The “Remain” side is generally comfortable with Britain exercising influence through a union of nations. They’re typically open to detail, strategically fairly modest and have an admiration for the competence of European leaders.

The “Leave” side harks back to a period of unchallenged British colonial strength, has a deep-seated hatred of detail, believes in the triumph of the will, and views European politicians as limp technocrats.

That world view has a long history, in which the current prime minister played no small part. When he worked as Brussels correspondent for the Telegraph between 1989 and 1994, he pioneered a new form of quasi-fictional reporting on nonsense news items like size limitations on condoms and bans on prawn cocktail-flavoured crisps.

At the time, it all seemed fairly jolly – an ultimately harmless form of instinctive Little Englander prejudice. But it helped cement a specific variant of the Eurosceptic world view, which took firm hold in what is now the Brexit electorate.

It was distinct from that of its fellow constitutional Eurosceptics, who were wary of legal overreach in the Maastricht Treaty and of the potential volatility of having a monetary union without any overarching fiscal or banking arrangements to complement it.

Hysterical offence

That kind of Euroscepticism was built on an understanding of the complexity of the European project, a grudging admiration for the legal and political achievements that had secured it, and a realistic assessment of Britain’s relative strength within it.
The Johnson brand of Euroscepticism was different. It despised complexity. It dismissed the complex reality of trying to create harmonized regulations for a Single Market in favor of hysterical offense at rules on noise levels for lawnmowers. It convinced itself instead that these rules were the deranged product of a class of European technocrats with nothing better to do but meddle in other people’s jovial prawn-cocktail-crisp-eating lives.

And, as a corollary of that, it viewed Britain as this immensely powerful, freewheeling, imaginative, free-trading powerhouse constrained by continental bureaucracy.

That world view helps explain the sense of bafflement and outrage with which hardline Brexiteers met the “Backstop” negotiations. It was simply incomprehensible to them that tiny Ireland would be able to stand up to Great Britain. It was a reversal of basic historical laws. The idea that smaller nations gained strength by working within transnational organisations like the EU had not occurred to them, because their entire assumption about it was that it weakened member states.

The detail of the proposal prompted a similar reaction. They had not bothered to understand the manner in which a customs union eradicated tariffs, country-of-origin checks and customs declarations within its borders, nor the way Single Market alignment eliminates regulatory checks. This was the world of detail, which was considered at best incomprehensible or at worst some sort of trick played by continental-types on common-sense British pragmatists.

There was no appreciation of the motives, moral commitment or intellectual capacity of their negotiating partners. And this type of myopic approach was not just unseemly. It also made them strategically ineffective.

Jacobean cult

A willingness to compromise was therefore replaced by a commitment to the absolute triumph of the will. If Brexiteers simply believed hard enough, all the details of other countries’ negotiating priorities and the technical requirements of trade would disappear. Brexit thought retreated into a kind of Jacobean cult, in which the content of its beliefs mattered less than its adherents’ undying willingness to commit to them.

When the “Backstop” proposal was published, they simply could not understand what they were looking at, even though the broad outlines of what it would entail had been public knowledge for months. The emotional shock ultimately brought down Theresa May’s administration.

The same process is now playing out in parliament, as it enters its most important week in recent memory – and quite probably in our lifetime.

Johnson is threatening to remove the whip from Tory MPs who back rebel legislation against no deal. It is a spectacular sight. A prime minister with no majority is threatening to slash it even further if he does not get his way, seemingly unaware of the fact that this compromises his own position as much as it does their own.

Some people believe – probably rightly – that his ultimate aim is a general election, either in October or, if possible, just after the no-deal exit is delivered.

Quite why this would be a desirable outcome for him is unclear. His hardline position threatens his seats in Scotland and Conservative-Lib Dem marginals. There is little evidence suggesting he could make up those seats by flipping over Leave voters in traditionally Labour areas.

If no-deal happened, the resulting chaos would make it dramatically less likely that he could secure a majority. Although it is not clear that he has understood the evidence enough to recognise this.

The overwhelming lack of interest in detail and absolute commitment to the triumph of the will, infused with an elixir of unabashed nationalism, dominates the minds of those in No 10, forcing them into the same errors over and over again.

That error is based on a world view which took hold of the right of British politics for decades and which Johnson himself helped create. History has a cruel sense of humor.

Official Communication from the UFA

Posted by Jim on

Boris’ slip is showing

Posted by Jim on

Amid continuing political turmoil at Westminster, Boris Johnson’s control of the Brexit agenda has slipped along with his parliamentary majority tonight. A key motion to rule out a crash Brexit on October 31 passed by 328 votes to 301.

In a day of high political drama, two MPs crossed the aisle, overturning the British Prime Minister’s working majority and increasing the chances of a snap general election. Tonight 21 Tory MPs rebelled against their own party, which has for the past two years clung to power only thanks to the support of the DUP.

Johnson’s extreme right and profoundly unionist government has said it is determined to take Scotland and the north of Ireland out of the European Union on the same terms as England and Wales. That would mean border checks in Ireland and a remilitarisation of the Six Counties in what would be a devastating blow to the 1998 Good Friday peace Agreement.

Following a major success tonight, an increasingly united opposition at Westminster now aims to get a Bill passed tomorrow to ensure a no-deal Brexit is off the table.

Reacting to his defeat, Johnson has confirmed he will table a motion for an election in a bid to ensure he has a free hand in Brexit negotiations. He told the Commons: “I don’t want an election but if MPs vote tomorrow to stop negotiations… then that would be the only way to resolve this” .

Green Party co-leader Caroline Lucas said the Bill must pass through all stages tomorrow before an election is called.

“Boris must be stopped from getting his election plan before we’ve secured the legislation to stop us crashing out in an election campaign,” said Green Party co-leader Caroline Lucas.

Despite the setback tonight, it is still not certain that Johnson will allow his determination for a hard Brexit to be deflected. Senior Tory ministers in Johnson’s ‘war cabinet’ have refused to say if they will abide by new legislation at Westminster, further deepening an already grave constitutional crisis.

Last week’s unprecedented move to prorogue parliament beginning next week has already provoked multiple legal actions which are now working their way through the courts.

Amid the escalating political turmoil, Johnson is scheduled to meet 26 County Taoiseach Leo Varadkar for talks on Monday. But Sinn Fein has said that it’s clearer than ever that the British Parliament will never serve the interests of the Irish people.

MP Chris Hazzard said: “The Tory party have been circus-masters for the last number of years when it comes to Westminster.

“They have literally allowed the chaos to infiltrate every single part of the Parliament. And increasingly now we are seeing that in the entire democratic process.

“There is a paralysis falling across Westminster, nothing else but talk about Brexit and what we have seen in the last couple of weeks is what can only be described as machiavellian maneuvers by Boris Johnson and his puppet-master Dominic Cummings in the background, looking at ways in which they can force through and step aside and manipulate the democratic process and the rights and entitlements of ordinary people.”

A planned protest outside one of the venues the Northern Ireland Secretary was due to visit was called off [because he did not show up].

Posted by Jim on September 3, 2019

David Young, PA. Belfast Telegraph.

Monday, September 2, 2019

The Northern Ireland Secretary cut short a Brexit-focused visit to the Irish border after Cabinet ministers were summoned to Downing Street.

Julian Smith was in Newry on Monday morning where he heard about Brexit concerns from police commanders during an extensive briefing session at a local station.

He was then due to visit a meat processing plant in the city but the engagement was cancelled at the last minute due to developments in London.

The confirmation of the cancellation came after a morning of conflicting messages from the Northern Ireland Office as to whether the second part of the visit would proceed.

It is understood Mr Smith will fulfil the outstanding engagement at a later date.

A planned protest by anti-Brexit activists outside the ABP meat plant was called off when it first emerged that Mr Smith may not be attending.

Damian McGenity from the campaign group Border Communities Against Brexit criticized the handling of the event.

“It’s very bizarre,” he said outside the plant gates.

“For a British Cabinet minister, someone in his position, to say he’s coming, not say he’s coming, say he’s coming and then cancel.

“It think it’s just typical of how British Cabinet ministers have behaved over the last three years when they come to a border town or a place on the border.

“Either they come secretly and don’t tell anyone, and get a picture taken, or when they do come they don’t engage or, in this case, they just cancel and don’t really care.”

Mr McGenity said local people had “enormous” concerns about a no-deal Brexit.

“The British Government is in complete chaos, it looks like they will contrive any situation to have a no-deal,” he said.

“For us it’s a disaster, we are at the coal face of Brexit, that will mean a hard Border on the island of Ireland.”

Last month, Mr Smith stated his intention to travel to the border to hear the concerns of business and communities living close to what will become the UK’s land frontier with the EU single market post-Brexit.