The End Game for Brexit

Only a vain fool would want to be prime minister of the United Kingdom today. Teresa May was greatly flattered when she was asked to take the poisoned chalice of leadership. Today, 22 July 19 is her last day of holding that chalice.

There was little democracy in the process of electing the new prime minister of the United Kingdom today. Only members of the conservative party were eligible to vote – almost 160,000 of them which is just 0.000625% of the population of the United Kingdom. This process was preferred to a general election for what reason? Could there have been a fear of losing the majority of two seats in the House of Commons and therefore power?

This absence of a sizeable working majority, an apparent inability to consult with like minded partners and her private belief in ‘remaining’, was what ultimately brought down Teresa May, as I see it.

So having decided that the country has no right to choose their next prime minister, ‘they’ decided to pitch a ‘remainder’ against a ‘leaver’ as candidates to – well – leave. Which one do you think was expected…no…intended to win? Yes, the leave campaigner was always going to win.

Unfortunately for Boris Johnson, he will have to act out his dreams of being a right honourable politician whilst facing an impossible situation. It’s like arriving at five in the morning at the Glastonbury music festival after an all night concert in which all the bands were booed off stage. Only a single cleaner is to be seen sweeping up debris from the back of the stage.

Come on Boris, get your ukulele out and give us a number!

shouts someone from the crowd. They are not quite sure how he got there but they are willing to sit through one more act before the stage is dismantled.

Vanity makes you so thick skinned you find yourself being handed a battered ukulele (called the Withdrawal Agreement) and tuning it’s three remaining strings. You can now say you have been in a band at Glastonbury 2019, when your grand kids ask you Boris.

But he is not so poor a politician that he has forgotten to organise a bus to take him home. It sits at the back of the stage with the engine just ticking over. The driver leans against an open door dragging on cigarette. This bus has written on the side; ‘no deal’.

Many politicians cringe at the thought of a ‘no deal’ with the danger of a catalogue of unintended consequences emerging from it like the Monty Python one ton weight descending from above. The EU commissioners are expecting the £39 billion pound debt to be paid by the United Kingdom. Failure to do this would leave the UK’s reputation as an honourable nation in tatters, the pound would crash and investors rush to remove capital and businesses from the nation.

Yet Boris has cleverly wrapped up this ‘no deal’ option in a transparent tissue of lies paper. ‘This is on the table so that we have bargaining power’ the public are told. But of course the mere presence of this option means that there would be no deceit if it were decided to be used. After all, the problems faced by Boris Johnson are so unmanageable that ‘throwing the baby out with the bath water’ is an appealing Party ploy.

And when the unexpected consequences start appearing one by one, he can say that none of this was his fault. Third parties such as the EU commissioners and Teresa May and all the other political parties, were the cause of the chaos now falling from the skies.

One such cloud burst, in my view, will inevitably be the countries that make up the United Kingdom seeking independence. I expect Northern Ireland to vote to become part of Eire (and Europe) first. That will pave the way for Scotland to seek independence and perhaps even the north of England!

Boris will be like the male lead in a farce that ends with his trousers around his ankles and a chicken on his head – but then – I expect he would rather like that look.

I am disheartened when I listen to people asked for their views on Brexit on TV. They expect there to be some sort of change after Brexit but rarely state what that might be. The ‘end game’ is lost in the excitement of the ‘present game’.

I am reminded of the ‘independence’ parties held in countries in Africa as the colonial powers withdrew in the 1950’s. The national exuberance and excitement lasted several days. New national flags were flown from windows and vehicles, horns blaring. People danced in the streets all because they were ‘free’ without pausing to think what that meant.

I make no excuse for colonialism which was clearly wrong. But when the European countries left Africa there was a political vacuum. Despots and power hungry ‘leaders’ filled the parliaments and military top jobs. Corruption and victimisation of populations became normal. People found the end game was no better than before – sometimes worse.

I wonder what will be the ‘end game’ for Brexit, once the bunting has been taken down from the streets parties.

Nigel Farage will disappear from the scene because his great ‘oversimplification of the facts’ will be over.

All that will be left will be a resounding silence, little direction in the shape of cleverly managed new prospects.

The EU will treat the UK as positively second class; why shouldn’t they? And America will not save the UK from nasty Europe this time round – unless you think President Trump is a very very good person… very loyal and trustworthy person who loves British Trump…Boris Gump.