So Boris Johnson is the new Prime Minister (a “work in progress” at the moment as the actual transition happens some time later).
He gave an acceptance speech (saw it on Sky News UK) where he said he’s going to “Deliver BREXIT”.
So, is he?
I don’t know all that much about Boris. I know he was in T. May’s cabinet, was Mayor Of London, rides a bike sometimes, and has some quirky personal traits (like impossible hair…)
Other than that, I mostly know him as the target of the Established Leadership via various snide remarks.
Frankly, that alone is enough for me to want to endorse him. I seem to have reached the point where anyone who is derided by The Powers That Be, and especially when derided by those pushing the Globalist Agenda, gets my approval. I know it’s wrong to make snap decisions on so little evidence; but it is what it is. When a group is clearly evil and bent on world domination and the destruction of National Character, the subjugation of the individual to the Socialist Machine; well, that ends up being a pretty good endorsement of anyone they oppose.
But that is very thin tea…
So anyone with more experience or exposure to Boris who can enlighten? If so, please step up and comment.
Will he in fact deliver BREXIT? Can he, given the opposing forces?
Is he a right honorable man? Does he do good works?
What’s the strange obsession that will be shoved as an agenda that makes everyone else groan & squirm? Every politician has one, some hot button they must push. The only question is can they keep it hidden from view enough to not be noticed…
Basically, what does P.M. Boris Johnson mean for The United Kingdom?
Musings from the Chiefio 
The MSM can’t resist slandering him every chance they get, so I will just give one link to the pro side.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/07/can_the_uks_new_prime_minister_boris_johnson_slay_the_eu_and_revive_the_reaganthatcher_comity.html
It was expected that he would win, but the numbers are interesting: 92,153 votes to Hunt’s 46,656.
The party members in the public are far more decisive than the party members in the government.
Still, he faces a huge task and with lots of opposition inside and out. Parliament is scheming so that it cannot be bypassed. Ministers are saying Scotland will leave the UK. Ursula von der Leyen is dropping hints that she could extend the deadline. (currently about 100 days from now). She may be the new Theresa May character for the EU — out of her depth.
Oh, one more about Boris. The “red wine sofa” incident. Here covered in the New Yorker, just one out of about a million hits, shows what kind of dirty tricks Boris has to suffer through.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-uk/will-boris-johnsons-late-night-altercation-sink-his-bid-to-become-prime-minister
Boris was my MP here in Oxfordshire. He was very popular and effective. He visited every corner of the constituency, even came to my bit, which neither his predecessor or the current wet have done. Much of the opposition to him is mindless hate for someone with a character. We’ll see if he is any good. I wish him well.
I get my opinion from my reading of the Spectator. He seems to me to be a character close to Trump. Highly intelligent and effective, with some quirky traits that drive “the left” crazy. One of which is to tell the truth.
He seemed to do a good job in London. Certainly better than the present incumbent.
#rhoda klapp, you are closer than me and my observation from the other side of the World agrees with yours. I also with the country of my birth all the best, and hope that Boris delivers.
“Delingpole: Twenty Ways Boris Johnson Can Make Britain Great Again”
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/07/23/delingpole-twenty-ways-boris-johnson-can-make-britain-great-again/
@Ian, that’s a pretty comprehensive list. And many of the same issues need tackling here in Oz.
I have a friend in the London police that says that he is a Machiavellian highly intelligent but truly amoral sociopath – based on some stuff he had done that UK Crown Prosecution Services judged they wouldn’t be able to get a conviction for. Doesn’t necessarily mean he will be a bad P.M. but need to be clear that Boris is primarily working for his own interests.
He has a long record of tolerance and good humour, combined with a complete absence of malice. When it comes to elections, I always say I’d vote for anyone who says they’ll just leave me alone, and Johnson would be more or less the first politician in my voting lifetime to offer that.
He has a personal life which is a hilarious, ongoing mess. His bumbling public persona appears to be choreographed down to the tiniest detail (he seems to have realized you have to get it exactly right if you want to use it to pull women). He can describe burqas as resembling letterboxes, but, in the same article, emphasize that we must never ban them, however ridiculous they may appear., Other countries in the EU have banned them, but banning things is not the British way. But he’s still attacked for so-called Islamophobia in any case.
He’s similarly accused of homophobia, for once, long ago, having used the word “bumboys”. But this is also a man who once walked a whole gay pride march in a pink stetson. As always, I’d rather judge a man by what he does rather than what he says.
He’s inevitably accused of racism, because it’s now virtually impossible for anyone not to be. But this is a man who speaks most European languages fluently. He gets on with anyone, which annoys the hell out of his contemporaries, who can’t read a word if it’s not in translation, and who overcome their lack of knowledge of the world beyond the English language by accusing everyone else of being racist.
He can be horribly thoughtless and superficial (or human, as I would call it). There was an incident in 1993 where a phone call was recorded between Johnson and a former schoolfriend who was under investigation for fraud. The friend wanted Johnson to find out the address of a journalist who was investigating his activities, so that the friend could arrange for the journalist to be attacked. In the phone call Johnson is heard reluctantly agreeing to do so. For whatever reason Johnson never actually supplied the journalist’s address, and nothing came of it. If you’re a Johnson hater, it’s proof that the man is both malign and incompetent (he couldn’t find the information he promised). If you are happy with Johnson, it’s evidence that he does and says things he shouldn’t, but when he’s had a think about it, he does the right thing in the end, which is all that matters.
On global warming, he’s written plenty of deeply sceptical, informed and humorous articles on the subject. But he’s currently shacked up with a blonde many years his junior, who is inevitably a committed environmentalist, but also seems possessed of a volcanic temper. So he’s so far had to toe the line on Theresa May’s insane zero-carbon-by-2050 initiative. But I’d be very surprised if his heart were really in it. (His penis, more so.)
Is Boris an honourable man? He has been divorced twice and is said to have several extra-marital affairs. He has often campaigned using anecdotes which have turned out to be untrue (e.g. bananas and kippers). He has been sacked from at least two jobs for lying. And don’t forget the Brexit bus.
Does he do good works? He certainly takes advantage of photo-opportunities. However, the best kind of ‘good works’ don’t make it into the media (remember thinking George Michael and Princess Diana were quite shallow until, after their deaths, many many people told stories of extraordinary generosity of time and money which escaped the media during their lifetime) so who knows what Boris is up to in his spare time?
As an MP and as London Mayor he famously worked a short week and found time for paid ‘journalism’ and radio appearances.
My main disappointment with Mr Johnson is the same as my problem with most mainstream politicians these days i.e. I’m not really sure what he believes in. He has no consistent story. He promised to oppose a 3rd runway at Heathrow then didn’t turn up to vote against it. His life of privilege makes me wonder if he really understands or cares about the NHS and state schools. He famously made his mind up about Brexit by writing to contradictory newspaper columns and choosing the one he felt was most advantageous.
Can he deliver Brexit? He might be able to do that if he can quash the opposition of the EU and the opposition of most of the UK parliament and the opposition of just under half of the UK population. He says he can ‘unite the country’. If he pulls that off then I want to see what Penn and Teller have to say as it will be an amazing trick.
I suspect that, yesterday, his ambitions for Britain were achieved in full and he will soon lose interest when he realises how complicated the job of PM can become.
I hope he proves me wrong.
@EM: Impossible hair? I think it is pretty typical, by what I have seen while working there.
Dellers again: I reckon this is close to the best picture I’ve seen:
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/07/24/boris-a-field-guide-to-britains-new-pm/
Like Trump, like Churchill, Boris’ unconventionality is enough to blind boring people into mindless hatred. It is a failure of appreciation on their part to miss that there may be more ways of doing things than sticking to the safe script.
Rhoda – your personal experience with Boris gives me hope that maybe he’s not going to screw up as PM. I suspect he’s however good at promising that “something will be done” and then passing the job onto the person who actually has to do it, and doesn’t actually do more than organising other people. He appears to not put the work in to understand the background to things (see Nagani-Radcliffe and the Iranian problem) and to wing it and expects to be able to walk back any statements that prove to be mistaken because he didn’t go deep enough.
I think that if he appoints good people in positions of power, and doesn’t interfere with what they are doing, then he’ll do OK and may in fact do an excellent job. If he’s personally put under pressure to produce a decision, I suspect he’ll cock up.
He’s put a lot of effort into appearing to be a buffoon, but I think he’s a lot more intelligent than he generally appears. I’m thus disposed to accept Foyle’s inside knowledge from his contact in the police. I’m not that worried about the unconventionality, since (as with Trump) he’ll be our bull in their china shop, but I think he’ll need advisors who are good and who will do the background work that Boris seems incapable of. He’s quite capable of making poor decisions (for example the now-defunct Garden Bridge project, water-cannon vehicles for London, or a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland) that get publicity but aren’t practical and thus waste time and money, and skips over the detail of the current Big Idea with the assumption that *someone else* will sort out the detail.
Possibly he sees the NI border problem as what it really is, which is a barrier to Brexit that the EU found useful – after all Switzerland manages its border OK without barriers. The solution the EU wants is that the UK stays in the customs union and effectively within the EU without the capability of contributing to any rules changes. Possibly Boris can cut that Gordian knot by being the bull in the china shop, by being certain that Brexit will happen whether or not the EU likes it. There’s likely to be a few years of disruption, and the question is whether the people of the UK feel it’s going to be worth it to get out from under the ECJ and the contributions to the EU budget. I doubt if most people are that worried about the free movement of people, except as regards the lack of cheap fruit pickers and other seasonal workers and the disappearance of a lot of the workers in the NHS. Stopping free movement with the EU won’t in any case reduce immigration that much, and I think most people will have seen the official figures on that.
I was wrong about Theresa May, since I thought she’d be another Thatcher. She had a reputation for putting the work in and knowing her stuff. However, turns out she couldn’t either bring people together or command them to vote the way she wanted, and that her solution which tried to please many different factions turned out to displease almost everyone and didn’t really provide a proper exit for the UK anyway. Maybe she believed the predictions of the bankers that Brexit would be an unmitigated disaster, and didn’t reflect on how often the predictions have been wildly out. That includes the prediction that even a vote for Brexit would cause a severe depression in the country – turns out that the UK did pretty well and has continued to do pretty well even despite the uncertainties over the future that have been extended way beyond what would be reasonable.
Could be Boris will do the job required, and in any case I doubt if anyone could do a worse job than Theresa May actually has done (even if she has done so with great fortitude and the best intentions). At this moment, of course, the job looks almost impossible, so Boris’s unconventionality is likely what we actually need.
@Simon:
As sitting on the fence is the worst possible state for the economy, and the UK has done fine for a few years of fence sitting, I think we have an existence proof that No Bad Thing will happen.
Uncertainty is far more damaging to “business decisions” than either in or out of the EU.
I think, based on only a few bits of film of Boris as a kid and seeing him in public, that he’s a kind of person I understand. Awkward as a kid and still possessed of some behaviours that others find peculiar; but has come to embrace it, perhaps even use and extend it. I feel a bit of a kindred spirit in that regard (though I learned to to the “spit and polish” expected behaviours and “look good in a suit”; I started off with some of that “out of place” feeling / action).
It’s kind of an Aspe thing. I’m well on the “normal side” of the line, but I can see it from here. So, for example, I’ve worn sandals with slacks and dress shirt. Why not? Seems folks who are firmly stuck in a rut with rule based behaviour have all sorts of “silly rules” they think everyone else must live by. But why not? So you get Boris on a bike in a suit with a helmet that looks way out of place and some hair sticking out oddly. Not the sort of thing a “Proper Person” ought do, eh? I can relate. I’ve been told many times that some things just aren’t done… yet I do them.
Once you’ve been through that Social Disapproval Wringer a few times, you come to embrace being sand in the gears of it. So I do not believe that Boris is posing, I think he is embracing. Yes, in both cases it is “using for effect”… but in the embrace it is from being true to ones inner state and values.
@Steven Fraser:
It seems to never want to stay in any particular place… so “impossible” to control. I have very fine hair and it, too, (at least when I had it ;-) was “impossible” without a lot of “stuff” on it. As I was prone to reacting to all sorts of things with fragrance and / or chemicals, I’d just avoid the “stuff”. ( I started out in the Hair Oil era and it did stay in place then, even if very oily… but by about age 10? something like that, had embraced my fly away top… then at about 18 went with the longer hippy look and it was possible to keep it in some order due to length. Now it’s mostly kept mowed about an inch or two long and not possible to see the disorder… )
So for Boris I see someone who’s just accepted that the hair will do what it will and ignores it; thus causing all sorts of other folks to figure he’s “got issues” as he isn’t bothering to keep his hair properly tended. I see it as someone willing to accept himself as he is, and not seeing the ROI in fighting hair disorder. That is, it’s a waste of time so ignore it and move on.
Overall, my estimate of Boris (admittedly based on far too little input) is that he, too, is borderline Aspe with high intelligence and “modest” awareness of social niceties. Enough to work with the society at large, but not willing to waste time on the silly bits. That doesn’t make him a Sociopath (though some folks will interpret it that way), just willing to “go there” when necessary.
One of the hard bits to explain to folks is what it is like to have control of your full capacities. To be able to emote when you wish, or not; on command. To be able to choose to make the Machiavellian decisions when it is the right thing to do, and not stress over the people it hurts; while just as readily NOT making those choices when it is not the moral choice.
As a manager I’ve had to choose people to lay off. People who’s lives I would hurt. I made the right and moral choice for my company and in my role and didn’t let it bother me. REALLY didn’t let it bother me. Shut off the “bother” circuits. How do I know it was moral? In one case I laid myself off as it was the right thing for the company. (Surprised the heck out of my boss, too, when I explained the ‘cut levels’ in green / yellow / red and “I’m in the yellow group” to him).
My sense of Boris is similar. He chooses to mostly be the happy kid state as it IS more fun. But he can facultatively swap to deadly serious unemotive when needed. Honestly, if YOU could choose to be in that wonderful joyous play-as-life state when it didn’t harm anything, would you not do so? Wouldn’t you ONLY enter that deadly dull, dreary, depressing and Machiavellian mindset of “Professional Adults” only as needed to get the job done? It seems to me that most folks make the transition fairly completely as they “enter adulthood” with small memories of it when on vacation once a year. For folks like me (and, I suspect, Boris) it is a state change both ways we can do a dozen times a day…
Or perhaps I’m just projecting too much ;-)
@ EM re the hair:
I envision you as resembling the character Wilson Wilson on the old TV series “Home Improvement”. You never see his entire face. He usually has a hat on. His hair is maybe less important to his persona than his nice, authoritative voice and wide-ranging intelligence.
One day last week, my department brought over a photographer to take pictures of the staff. I said I didn’t want my picture on the web. So I was able to escape that.
On the other hand, if they would have taken one of me behind my computer screen (a la Wilson) with only my eyes showing…well, I might have gone for that.
I guess my main reasons for not wanting to be pictured on the web are these:
(1) You never know who is using facial recognition software these days, do you? And they can create movies/audios of you saying/doing things you never did, just by grabbing a sample of your voice or a manipulable picture.
(2) My name is not uncommon. There are usually 3 or 4 of me in town at any one time. One time I looked up those other namesakes of mine and found that they were not people who paid their bills. I have even had creditors try to get me to pay an overdo bill for a next door neighbor who claimed the same last name as mine, and a house number that was too close for comfort. I had to advise the creditors that mine is not an uncommon name, and they needed to look up those other people because that debt was not mine.
(3) If they put a picture of me-at-work on the web and it fell into the wrong hands (say, those of a vengeful ex-spouse or his proxy), it would not be pretty.
@Paul Sommerset – I loved your write up. But you were missing the forest for the trees. At least the over all forest. The man is flawed, human, basically not a saint.
But can he lead? The colors are different, but the painting is the same as Trump. The real deal is – can he lead effectively? We know he is a Brexiteer. But can he lead the UK to the promised land?
I do appreciate all our Brits of their insight. It is educational to get the real deal without the shrill whiny screed of the YSM. But we colonials are merely bystanders in this etude.
@Deepgreen – ok, having read “Mr. Anybody” from Paul, your write up seems to bode ill for the UK. But then Trumps past is no canonization either. SO I guess we have to wait and see. What I got from both your comments is that, you are trepid Boris supporters. If he mucks it up, you are going to be all over him like white on rice.
Good! That is how I was with Trump. Fortunately, he converted me with his actions. And as Paul said, that is the key.
Thank you both.
Well there is a new Boris Johnson Cabinet. And 17 of May’s Remainer mates are gone. Good riddance !
BREXIT will happen on October 31st.
The Remainers in the Conservative party, the labour Party & the Lib Dems in the Commons will try to stop it. But in fact now the Brexit B Double truck will roll over them.
There may be a UK general election after BREXIT in say 12 months time, when things have settled down, to get rid of the Remainer remnants in the Commons.
I just watched “The Great Hack” on Netflix It’s hard to believe anything these days!
https://www.netflix.com/watch/80117542?trackId=250312413&tctx=1%2C0%2C8f441afc-955e-44ea-83fb-38c7e3644d31-15691109%2C767379ba-00fa-453d-8439-a2b07149c4ef_19147649X19XX1564023887959%2C767379ba-00fa-453d-8439-a2b07149c4ef_ROOT
Yesterday Boris made a speech on the steps of 10 Downing St. I don’t need to talk about the substance, I’m here to talk about the attitude. The upbeat, optimistic, bouncy tiggerish attitude. Once you’ve seen that, the TV talking heads who try to pour cold water on it are stuffed. It looks like all they can do is moan. The BBC has been desperately trying to undermine Bojo, but this just puts them squarely in the sour grapes corner. If he’s doing it on purpose, kudos. If that is going to be the style for the whole time, I’m looking forward to it.
EM – yep, the uncertainty has been the most-damaging thing as May and the rest have kicked the can down the road for over 3 years. For the young people, there’s been a lot of uncertainty about whether the job they have today will still be there tomorrow, and the gig economy has become much larger (basically people are paid for doing a task, and though the pay per hour officially meets minimum wage requirements, that’s a calculated time for when everything goes perfectly and doesn’t allow for traffic jams or other delays). My daughter has 2-3 jobs at any time and little security on any of them.
I hadn’t really considered the Aspe aspect of Boris. I can see it fits, though. That could explain a lot, and maybe that gives a lot more hope that Boris will do a good job. Certainly his demolition of the previous Cabinet and sacking half of them to get people in who are committed to delivering Brexit looks great. He’s put Jacob Rees-Mogg in as leader of the House of Commons, which looks like a very smart move – J R-M is another Aspe who appears to have some severe personal eccentricities but is massively competent in parliamentary matters.
Looking at what Boris has done so far is encouraging. He hasn’t much time left, and it seems he’s not going to waste it.
A while back you made the comparison of the EU to club where, if you wanted to leave, you had to walk barefoot over broken glass. It looks like Barnier knew that May was never going to walk away from the deal, and so the negotiated deal was definitely not the best for the UK. Boris will however walk away and pick up the pieces afterwards. The EU also said that the withdrawal should be finished and sealed before there were any trade talks, and May accepted that where she should have walked away and left immediately. It makes no sense to not talk about future relationships until the UK was out of the club, and that was done simply to make the leaving more uncertain and difficult.
It really seems that a trade deal should be simple. I won’t charge you tariffs if you don’t charge me. Why should that take 14 years to negotiate? It does seem that if mutual trade is mutually beneficial as is stated, then the negotiations should be pretty quickly done. Maybe Boris can get it done in the remaining 97 days or so by cutting out the posing. Either they want to talk, or they don’t, and we know that no trade deal will impact the EU as hard as the UK.
Simon:
The EU will NOT negotiate up until the deadline. They have too much to lose, including credibility.
Once Brexit has happened then real negotiations will take place, but with the boot on the other foot. The EU exports far more to the UK that the UK exports to the UK.
The only ‘leverage’ they have is electricity transfers from Europe due to the utterly lunitic UK policy, but that may be a chimera as enforcement would drive the UK back to a rational policy.
Now Boris in his own words, 2004:
I can hardly condemn UKIP as a bunch of boss-eyed, foam flecked euro hysterics when I have been sometimes not far short of boss-eyed, foam-flecked hysteria myself.
Into Europe, 1997:
Look, I’m rather pro-European, actually. I certainly want a European community where one can go and scoff croissants, drink delicious coffee, learn foreign languages and generally make love to foreign women.
On women’s beach volleyball at the Olympics, 2012:
They are like glistening wet otters frolicking.
The dubious charms of Portsmouth as a city, 2007:
Too full of drugs, obesity, underÂachievement and Labour MPs.
What lies below the surface, 2007:
The awful truth is that people do take me seriously … you must consider the possibility that underneath it all there really may lurk a genuine buffoon.
Re the latter:
Joan Collins in The Spectator tells the story of a dinner party where Boris was neighbour to an actress (porn movies) who was teasing men about her ‘new breasts’. At the slightest encouragement she exposed them. Boris was ignoring her for his neighbour on the far side, but after pointed (if I can use that term) remarks gave her a brief look and returned to the neighbour.
Since the neighbour would have been feminine, was Boris concentrating on the better option, or does he not like big boobs?
What I’d be doing were I “negotiating” a “trade deal” with the EU:
Me: We want open trade with no tariffs and are ready to sign that today.
EU: No, the May deal, take it or leave it.
Me: OK, we’re out then. Tariffs will be set to match yours, except where you set them to benefit an industry only you have or hurt an industry only we have, in which case we will implement offsetting tariffs. Total tariffs on our side to be set to exactly balance all tariffs you collect. Call if you need me. Bye.
EU: What The?? But!!!
…
…
Me: Hello? Oh, you want a deal? Well we’re presently working with the USA, Canada, Australia, India, New Zealand, South Africa, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, and I think it was Pakistan or Kazakhstan, one of those icky-stans; can we get back to you next quarter? Oh, you can always unilaterally drop your tariffs and we’ll match them. Toodles.
…
…
Me: Hello? Oh, you again? Dropping tariffs? OK, we’ll have someone get on that match adjustment. Thanks. Look, I’ve got Trump on the other line, can I get back to you?…
Then, on that “Sticky” issue of the North Ireland Border:
Announcement From The PM: There is now an EU border with the Republic Of Ireland. All goods being shipped across it must be electronically declared at our web site. Goods exiting or entering the island will have a customs check at the loading point to boat or airplane so be sure to have your declaration printed out or ready for display on a mobile device. No, there are no customs / border check stations at the EU border; we’re doing what Switzerland does with the EU. Spot checks will be done someday. Hey, you didn’t need any border stations for decades so why ought I spend money on them now? You are all grown ups are you not? Act like it.
Would all that work perfectly? Nope, not at all. BUT the problems in it would be far far less than the troubles caused by trying to make it all some idealized perfect rule driven thing. Let the folks smuggle the odd bottle of French Wine or Irish Whisky over the border and catch the guy running ship loads. Everyone will be happy.
@Graeme No. 3:
Per your question:
I’d rather have a conversation with a flat chested interesting woman than look at the “look don’t touch” of a narcissistic tease any day.
Put another way: 1/2 the population have boobs. Some of us got over that a while ago. I’d like to know more about the rest of the package as I have “novelty seeking behaviour” and that’s where something novel is more likely to be found.
There’s also an issue of what is says about a person, that they are lacking in self esteem to the point of surgery and do not just accept themselves. I accept me “pimples, warts, and all”. Can someone who does not accept their own limitations ever accept mine?
Or, more basely, IF I wanted to look at big silicone, I could order it from a catalog… but you can’t get interesting conversation and maybe a flirt or two that way…
Folks if Boris does absolutely NOTHING about arranging a deal before Oct 31….Like taking a holiday ! Like spending his time exclusively sorting out some of the other monumental stuff ups in the UK first. etc etc..
Then a no deal BREXIT is inevitable..
Whatever the Commons Remainers try to do..After all any resolution they pass will not be the government’s will. The only option the Reamainers of any colour have, is an No Confidence motion.
And if they try that I think Boris will go for an election dated after October 31st and after BREXIT has happened….
And probably arrange to Brexit party candidates stand in any seats held by Remainer Tory MP’s…In other words consign them to oblivion…
E M the one big issue with the Ireland Northern Ireland border is migrants from other EU countries or elsewhere on the planet.
1; There is no border control between Ireland and Northern Ireland and Irish and Northern Irish can go back to holiday or live as they wish.
2: EU citizens & residents can also move to Ireland as they wish
3: Thus there would be a potential open door for folks to fly into Ireland from anywhere and then enter the UK via Ireland with no border controls at all.
I know this because I have done it. I flew into Dublin and went through the Irish immigration control. And then afterwards flew to Manchester without any migration control at the Manchester end. With the UK Brexit there will be border controls for people arriving from Ireland in the UK. But not if they are arriving from Northern Ireland.
I’m sure there is a way to sort this issue.. But exactly how I don’t know.
@Bill In Oz:
Not that hard, really. You do an “inland border control” at the point where one gets on an airplane or ship headed to Britain from North Ireland. Now you’ve mildly inconvenienced the folks of North Ireland on trips to Great Britain, but vastly simplified their Irish travels.
Next, you institute an “audit” process for folks choosing to work or live in North Ireland. that prevents unexpected “immigration” to a big degree.
Note that the USA has an inland “Border Control Station” on I-10 in the middle of Texas and I’ve gone through it a dozen times. It’s a LONG way from the physical border. So I’m not advocating anything I’ve not personally lived with.
Will there be some “leakage”? Certainly. Nothing is perfect. Some guy named O’Brian with a farm in the Republic who rents a spot of land in the north and farms both (saw that on Sky IIRC) or some lass who rents a house in the Republic while a legal resident of North Ireland and working there. But any significant “cheating” will tend to be enforced by the Locals ratting out the folks who bother them.
Then things like the normal audits of companies will show up if anyone is nipping a few truckloads of Irish Whisky from the wrong side to sell in their shops and not paying duties… (while you ignore the folks who dash over to buy a bottle just for themselves).
Rather like the way folks in N. California dash up to Medford Oregon to buy goods without the California 9.x-10.x% sales tax (varies by county and city) and folks in Oregon run down to California to buy booze without dealing with the State Liquor Stores in Oregon. ( I paid for many a trip to see my friend in Medford by taking a load of booze up and bringing back goods requested… )
Basically, don’t sweat the small stuff and do what governments are SUPPOSED to do: Make life better for their citizens.
This also puts it up to the EU to be the Baddie and build border kiosks, should they wish… So has a nice social future angle to it as well… -) (Go on, Junker, take the bait ;-)
E M, That might work. It’s not something I know abut as we do not have InlND BORDER CONTROL POSTS HERE IN OZ
A little bit of Boris in Parliament defending the conservative agenda.
The Rowdy style of debate in the British Parliament is always entertaining – although a bit hard to follow for these American ears.
The UK needs a border manned with Border Patrol agents around LONDON!!! Keep those loonies in!!!
Even for me born in the UK but growing up in Australia find it hard to understand him at times.
Larry.
But clearly he has the wood on Corbyn. And is leading a Tory parliamentary party which is enthusiastic about that.
However the real battle will take place later closer to Brexit and will involve Farage and the Brexit Party.
“Red Flag: Boris SCRAPS Pledge to Reduce Migration ‘From Hundreds of Thousands to Tens of Thousands’”
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/07/25/red-flag-boris-drops-pledge-reduce-migration-from-hundreds-thousands-tens-thousands/
Yes, it’s Boris, a phrase which should send a chill down the spine of anyone with a measurable IQ.. The result was pretty much inevitable – the other contender had a reputation for being “a complete Hunt” (or something like that) and IMO he did amazingly well to get as much as 1/3 of the (Tory Party membership) vote.
I regard Johnson as dangerous, the untogether buffoon personality being just the front he uses to humanise himself. As Another Ian has just noted, the core demand of Brexit – that the government should do something about the swamping of our country with unwanted parasitic aliens – is irrelevant to “Boris”, who wants to legitimise any and all riff-raff and pretend they’re “British”. How much more damage he will do before we get a chance to replace him God only knows. He may enforce “some sort” of Brexit, but he is not a man of conviction and does not believe in the real deal. No, he is Just Another UNiparty Drone, because if he weren’t he wouldn’t have got the job. Pray for an early election, if that’s worth a prayer these days.
And over in the red corner, Jeremy Corbyn is still fighting off the “antisemitic” drivel which (only some) Jews in the party have been spraying about forever because they want everything safely back in the control of “Labour Friends of Israel”, as it was before this dreadful independent thinker somehow got the top job and refused to prioritise them. JC’s main problem is precisely that he is not a UNiparty Drone, so will always be swimming against the Deep State.
Can we start again, please?
There is no “Start Again” Steve.
But Boris will be confronted by the Brexit party’s determination to ensure that the British government has control over who enters the country. As it is now it doesn’t. Virtually anyone who is a citizen or permanent resident of the EU can enter freely as there is no border for such persons. Control only exists for folks from the rest of the world.
So one step at a time
One issue at a time.
Spiked has an interesting major opinion piece on Boris here. Not complimentary !
: https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/07/23/boris-johnson-is-not-our-saviour/?utm_source=Weekly+newsletter&utm_campaign=7e98e6edaf-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_07_26_04_23&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_7e9712ba33-7e98e6edaf-65577885
The Tom Slater (Spiked) article comes across as a Brexiteer who expects to be disappointed. The not complimentary part is this:
“Johnson’s record hardly inspires confidence. This is a man for whom whether or not he actually believed in Brexit in the first place is still an open question.”
This Mark Steyn article has more details on that. Mark Steyn actually knew him, so I’d weight his thoughts more, plus I like the way he says it.
https://www.steynonline.com/9576/berrying-boris
“It was a canny choice of shtick: It duped the left and half of the right into dismissing him as a buffoon. And, even more cleverly, chuntering his way around the country as a toff with a massive thesaurus gave him, somewhat counter-intuitively, the common touch.”
and
“This is the genius of the act: He’s Bertie Wooster with Jeeves’ brain. Out on the street, he’s everybody’s friend; among his actual alleged friends, he’s utterly ruthless:”
In case you need it, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertie_Wooster
more from Mark Steyn:
“My view is that the whole re-negotiation thing is a feint, and Boris actually wants to leave with no deal. He wants a clean split – and the UK reborn as a sovereign nation, no ifs or buts. Whether he wants it because that’s his preferred public policy or because it cements his place in history is unimportant if you happen to believe, as I do, that that’s in the best interests of the United Kingdom.”
This will be interesting. Todays chess move, from AP (London):
“Prime Minister Boris Johnson pushed Britain closer to a no-deal exit from the European Union on Monday, insisting he will not hold Brexit talks with EU leaders unless the bloc lifts its refusal to reopen the existing divorce deal.”
Simple. Bold. Walk away, don’t beg. May, Obama, take note.
Yes Boris deserves the big tick for that. He’s called the EU’s bluff.
I wonder how long it will take for them to wake up that the clock is running down and Boris does NOT care.
I noticed that the FTSE is up about 2%, the CAC is down about 2% and the DAX is down about 3% since the Boris Johnson promotion (not knowing exactly what time the Boris Johnson election was announced). Coincidence?
Supposedly he once said “My friends, as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters”.
I do rather like someone who can say that about himself.
( I almost wrote “themselves” and thought it looked a bit odd…so I looked it up and found out a bit about reflexive pronouns…so much I missed out on because the education system decided to stop teaching proper grammar!)