Brexit - Lies, Damned lies and Boris' statistics !!

 Finally the mask of the Brexiteers has been rent asunder and shown to be a fig leaf towards xenophobia and tax avoidance !  

I make no bones about having "Socialist" leanings politically and indeed always have had!  Even while serving in the RAF I was touting early membership to the AUEW for tradesmen who would want to get a job at Heathrow.  

The dilemma in the RAF was always that, the members of that service were about 95% Tory for various reasons, but primarily because the Tories in the 60's were more likely to maintain bases in the sort of exotic countries that frankly the UK with its dying "Empire" could not afford ! 

The reality is that Denis Healey was, as Labour Secretary of State for Defence, the man who introduced the Forces best wage structure in 1970. However, the lure of overseas postings appealed to the vast majority of servicemen with attendant allowances. Ergo a predilection for voting for the party who appears to put the jam on the sandwich.

This digression from the Brexit topic is merely to highlight the left of centre leanings of your truly.

Back to Brexit then; The big red bus and the shameless lie on the side!

The Prime Minister’s actions since taking office, have already resulted in his brother Jo Johnson, a former Conservative minister resigning from the party as he no longer trusted Boris Johnson was acting in the “national interest.”

Now the PM’s sister, Rachel Johnson, has spoken out, warning she believes the PM’s bizarrely aggressive behaviour may be due to pressure from “people who have invested billions in shorting the pound or shorting the country in the expectation of a no-deal Brexit.”

This week it has been revealed in the By-line Times that the Cabinet Office has been asked to investigate if Boris Johnson has breached the ministerial code by not declaring hedge fund donors, some of whom also funded the Leave campaign that Boris Johnson jumped onto in 2016. 

Hedge funds and financiers who have poured millions into Tory coffers stand to make a mint by speculating on the economic pitfalls of a no-deal Brexit.

(It may be a picture of NY above, but the principle is the same if not more so in London !)

So what is "Brexit" really about? 

The simplistic answer is that the English nation need Brexit to assume the mantle of superiority to "Johnny Foreigner" and the EU represents a sign that no nation is superior to its neighbours. This attitude is still held in England despite the fact that the "Empire" that Britain did have in past centuries, has long since gone. The E.U. is a collective group to trade with neighbours within its group and to make it relatively easy to do so!

In the face of global trade and giants in those terms such as China, the USA, Russia and India it makes sense to be in some form of collective arrangements with like-minded partners.

The E.U. does have faults of that there is no doubt, but the sensible approach would have been to work with partners in Europe to rectify those, not to spit out the "Dummy" and throw the toys out of the pram.

Boris' election to P.M. was on the back of his leading the charge for Brexit, despite the fact that he was a remainer not too many months ago!  He is, if nothing else, an opportunist and seeing Theresa May struggling with this dilemma, he pounced with help from less savoury political allies such as Farage, Redwood and Duncan-Smith!

What of the man himself?  His antipathy towards Scotland is well known and has never been hidden such as the speech in which he likened us to drunken yobs who were lucky to have England to bail us out. The rise and rise again of the S.N.P.  and attendant demand for "Independence" is unstoppable and with the best will in the world an ineffectual Eton toff at the helm of GB is more of an oar to the voyage to Independence than an anchor.

Brexit might well be the "English" version of Independence and fair play to them, they are as entitled to it as we are from them.

Boris Johnson has told friends his minister’s salary of £150,000 a year is not enough to live on, according to reports.

The Prime Minister has apparently told friends his annual earnings were insufficient because of his “extensive family responsibilities”, according to a report in a Sunday Broadsheet. (The Tory PM has four children with his second wife, Marina Wheeler. He also fathered a daughter during an affair with arts consultant Helen MacIntyre, failing to get an injunction to prevent the reporting of her existence.)

Sadly he can't even afford a "Nanny" for his recent familial addition Wilfred, with Carrie Symonds! 

Perhaps archetypal Etonian toff and outright Tory snob, Jacob Rees-Mogg could lend him his as she's probably still nurse-maiding him.

The metamorphous transformation by Boris from a remainer to the banner carrying "Brexiteer" might well be attributed in part to his financial straights if it comes to pass, that his fund manager cohorts are seen to be grossly profiting from the damage done to the population of the UK as it exists at this moment. Personally I'm more inclined to the comments of his sister Rachel earlier vis the hedge fund speculators. 

Allied to Covid we have a perfect storm economically and politically so thank God we have Nicola at our rudder !