I'll say one thing for the six-lane pile-up which passes for UK political life these days, it's given me a bunch of entertaining stuff to blog about. Indeed, with the hounding from office of Kim Darroch, the UKs ambassador to the US, it appears we've reached an exciting new low in what, when it comes to be written, the definitive history of these benighted times will probably refer to as A Series of Hideously Embarrassing Events, in which the poor, orphaned, put-upon electorate are repeatedly forced to bury their heads in their hands and sob whilst an army of Count Olafs fuck about with their future to serve their own political ends. Yes, even more embarrassing than those Animatronic zombie thundercunts from the Brexit Party who had as all gnawing our knuckles in gut churning angst last week with their utterly ridiculous back-turning nonsense (though in fairness half of them weren't really sure which way they were supposed to be facing anyway), and that was your dad dancing at your fifteenth birthday party levels of awful, it was having your poem about your teenage crush being discovered and read out to the rest of the class levels of kill-me-now shame. And this, this, amazingly, was even worse. Because this was the most craven capitulation of HMG to a foreign power since we gave Calais back.
So, as it turns out leaving the EU and Taking Back Control of our Sovereignty (their caps, not mine) effectively translates to abasing ourselves to that petulant moron the Americans are currently saddled with at the drop of a hat. This is an interesting definition of Sovereignty, it's an even more interesting one of Taking Back Control, In the same way that the Chinese concentration camps for the Uighur people are an interesting Definition of promoting racial harmony, or Piers Morgan is an Interesting Definition of a grown up.
So, you may cry, who is the author of this particular transatlantic shitshow, what the fucking fuck have these blistering halfwits been up to now? A reasonable question, and one which I shall attempt to answer. In essence, for those of you who have sensibly not been paying attention, what happened was this: someone, for whatever reason (and there are more theories flying about as to the why than I have time for here, but, as ever, ask the question "who benefits?"*) leaked diplomatic cables in which the ambassador referred to Trump in less than complimentary terms. Including suggesting that he might be a touch on the thin-skinned side. That wacky Trumpster then did very little to disprove this assertion, publically flying off the handle, which is of course a perfectly normal way for a leader of state to behave, and publicly traducing HMG's man in the states via his usual favourite medium, Twitter.
It was a bravura performance, as all the usual Trumpian tropes of denial ("don't know the guy" - he's the bloke having lunch with you in that photo, there) mockery and belittling ("nobody likes him" - are you....ten?) and weird sidetracks (deciding that now was an appropriate time to take aim at Theresa May for her woeful handling of Brexit ("I told her what to do"). Now, notwithstanding whether or not you think that Twitter is an appropriate forum to conduct international diplomacy (hint, it isn't) this was, even by Donny's standards, a particularly unhinged display which went a long way towards confirming Darroch's already pretty rock-solid analysis. Surely HMG would react with the decorum and integrity required when one of its representatives is so thoroughly abused for, in essence, doing their job?
Well, not exactly. Whislt the PMs office tried to give the impression of reacting strongly (but not really saying anything), no-one gives a fuck what she thinks about anything any more: of more import to the country's future direction were the responses of of future conservative leader, Boris Johnson, and the candidate they have to put up to make the election look legit, like that guy in Russian elections who gets 2% of the vote, Jeremy Hunt. Hunt said roughly the right things, saying that he'd support Darroch (whilst quietly not mentioning that as his tenure was up at the end of the year he probably wouldn't replace him). Johnson, unsurprisingly, found a way to make this about him, humming, hawing and evading any questions for fear of upsetting Trump, with whom he intends to have a jolly nice time selling off the country in a few weeks. This craven display effectively hung Darroch out to dry, he concluded his position was no longer tenable, and resigned.
Yep, that's what Taking Back Control means, that's what Sovereignty means, it means selling your people down the river to avoid upsetting a tinpot rapist with the attention span of a mayfly and the vindictive response of a toddler whose toy's just been robbed. It is grimly amusing that Johnson, the end-of-the-pier Churchill impersonator, has not one ounce of that man's fortitude (whilst retaining the racism and sense of English exceptionalism in spades) and has collapsed like a damp cake at the first hint of trouble from Trump.
Back home, cardboard Nazi Nigel Farage has started calling for every civil servant and member of the armed forced to declare allegiance to Brexit, and for them to be sacked if they don't. This, apparently, is what Sovereignty means, it means everyone being forced by the state to think the same way, you know, that charge the Brexiteers lay at the EU's door. Except that that's pretty much a definition of what Fascism means. So here we are, clowns to the left of us, fascists to the right, stuck in the middle with EU.
Because, as has become increasingly apparent, a more apposite slogan than Taking Back Control would have been Severing Us From A Powerful Alliance So's We Can Get Fucked Up The Arse By The US, but you try putting that on the side of a bus and see how far you get. That's all Sovereignty was ever about, the opportunity for a few rich blokes to get slightly richer by asset-stripping a denuded, defenceless UK, anyone who thinks otherwise is kidding themselves, a sensible response, because the actuality of a craven, debased Johnson Premiership is frankly too awful to contemplate.
*One answer to this is Farage, btw. That'd be the same Farage who's just been to Italy to learn how crypto-fascist Matteo Salvini's managed to make it into power. That's the Matteo Salvini whose aide's just been caught on tape accepting under the table funding from Russia (thus leading to an investigation from the Milanese prosecutor's office), and that's the Russians who MI6 suspect of leaking the cables, and to whom Trump is in hock. Fun, isn't it?
So, as it turns out leaving the EU and Taking Back Control of our Sovereignty (their caps, not mine) effectively translates to abasing ourselves to that petulant moron the Americans are currently saddled with at the drop of a hat. This is an interesting definition of Sovereignty, it's an even more interesting one of Taking Back Control, In the same way that the Chinese concentration camps for the Uighur people are an interesting Definition of promoting racial harmony, or Piers Morgan is an Interesting Definition of a grown up.
So, you may cry, who is the author of this particular transatlantic shitshow, what the fucking fuck have these blistering halfwits been up to now? A reasonable question, and one which I shall attempt to answer. In essence, for those of you who have sensibly not been paying attention, what happened was this: someone, for whatever reason (and there are more theories flying about as to the why than I have time for here, but, as ever, ask the question "who benefits?"*) leaked diplomatic cables in which the ambassador referred to Trump in less than complimentary terms. Including suggesting that he might be a touch on the thin-skinned side. That wacky Trumpster then did very little to disprove this assertion, publically flying off the handle, which is of course a perfectly normal way for a leader of state to behave, and publicly traducing HMG's man in the states via his usual favourite medium, Twitter.
It was a bravura performance, as all the usual Trumpian tropes of denial ("don't know the guy" - he's the bloke having lunch with you in that photo, there) mockery and belittling ("nobody likes him" - are you....ten?) and weird sidetracks (deciding that now was an appropriate time to take aim at Theresa May for her woeful handling of Brexit ("I told her what to do"). Now, notwithstanding whether or not you think that Twitter is an appropriate forum to conduct international diplomacy (hint, it isn't) this was, even by Donny's standards, a particularly unhinged display which went a long way towards confirming Darroch's already pretty rock-solid analysis. Surely HMG would react with the decorum and integrity required when one of its representatives is so thoroughly abused for, in essence, doing their job?
Well, not exactly. Whislt the PMs office tried to give the impression of reacting strongly (but not really saying anything), no-one gives a fuck what she thinks about anything any more: of more import to the country's future direction were the responses of of future conservative leader, Boris Johnson, and the candidate they have to put up to make the election look legit, like that guy in Russian elections who gets 2% of the vote, Jeremy Hunt. Hunt said roughly the right things, saying that he'd support Darroch (whilst quietly not mentioning that as his tenure was up at the end of the year he probably wouldn't replace him). Johnson, unsurprisingly, found a way to make this about him, humming, hawing and evading any questions for fear of upsetting Trump, with whom he intends to have a jolly nice time selling off the country in a few weeks. This craven display effectively hung Darroch out to dry, he concluded his position was no longer tenable, and resigned.
Yep, that's what Taking Back Control means, that's what Sovereignty means, it means selling your people down the river to avoid upsetting a tinpot rapist with the attention span of a mayfly and the vindictive response of a toddler whose toy's just been robbed. It is grimly amusing that Johnson, the end-of-the-pier Churchill impersonator, has not one ounce of that man's fortitude (whilst retaining the racism and sense of English exceptionalism in spades) and has collapsed like a damp cake at the first hint of trouble from Trump.
Back home, cardboard Nazi Nigel Farage has started calling for every civil servant and member of the armed forced to declare allegiance to Brexit, and for them to be sacked if they don't. This, apparently, is what Sovereignty means, it means everyone being forced by the state to think the same way, you know, that charge the Brexiteers lay at the EU's door. Except that that's pretty much a definition of what Fascism means. So here we are, clowns to the left of us, fascists to the right, stuck in the middle with EU.
Because, as has become increasingly apparent, a more apposite slogan than Taking Back Control would have been Severing Us From A Powerful Alliance So's We Can Get Fucked Up The Arse By The US, but you try putting that on the side of a bus and see how far you get. That's all Sovereignty was ever about, the opportunity for a few rich blokes to get slightly richer by asset-stripping a denuded, defenceless UK, anyone who thinks otherwise is kidding themselves, a sensible response, because the actuality of a craven, debased Johnson Premiership is frankly too awful to contemplate.
*One answer to this is Farage, btw. That'd be the same Farage who's just been to Italy to learn how crypto-fascist Matteo Salvini's managed to make it into power. That's the Matteo Salvini whose aide's just been caught on tape accepting under the table funding from Russia (thus leading to an investigation from the Milanese prosecutor's office), and that's the Russians who MI6 suspect of leaking the cables, and to whom Trump is in hock. Fun, isn't it?
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