The right wing papers’ new Brexit hysteria

Instead, our former PM – real name Alexander – probably considers himself a modern-day Alexander the Great, crying salt tears of frustration because there are no more worlds to conquer. His ego is certainly large enough, but is his legacy secure? 

Johnson was thrown out of No 10 by his own party for being a lying grifter, and a totally untrustworthy, two-faced, bare-faced, lazy, inadequate chancer; so the answer is probably no. Meanwhile, his achievements, such as they are, look likely to last less time than a sandcastle faced with an incoming tide. 

Which explains why this sad egotist is fighting with all his journalistic might to stop any attempt to rewrite his Brexit deal with such venom. It is all he has. 

Since the weekend, the right wing papers have been full of apocalyptic claims about attempts by Sir Keir Starmer to “reset” our relations with the EU. Even the Times, which used to be a newspaper of record but has become increasingly unhinged, referred to this as a “surrender”.

Instead of a give-and-take negotiation that will help British business, it is apparently treasonous behaviour by a deeply unpopular politician who is ready to “betray” the will of the people and Brexit itself, and who has assembled a “Surrender Squad” of 200 civil servants to help him do so.

The Sun, which supported Starmer at the general election, has launched a “Don’t Betray Brexit” campaign, backed by yesterday’s men like Jacob Rees-Mogg and Steve Baker. True blue Leavers whose promises have failed to come true, both were kicked out at the general election.

Hilariously, Johnson used his own column in the Mail on Sunday to accuse Sir Keir of telling “bare-faced lies” when he vowed not to take the UK back into the EU during the election campaign.

Being accused of being a bare-faced liar by a man who fled parliament itself to avoid the shame of being thrown out for deliberately and consistently lying, is rather like having one’s sexual mores criticised by the Marquis de Sade, through his spokesman Casanova. 

But Johnson is not alone. Lord Frost joined in the attack, claiming that this new “surrender squad” was even larger than the civil service team he himself had used when he negotiated his pathetic and inadequate Brexit deal. This explains a lot. A few more well-informed negotiators might have helped, but even that is doubtful.

The mess we are in is down, very largely, to the fact that Brexit’s leading backers were at best naive and at worst wilfully ignorant and arrogant. They had no idea of what they wanted, what the country needed or what was possible.

Just days after Leave’s victory in the 2016 referendum, Johnson was boasting that Britain would remain in the EU’s single market but without free movement of people, without obeying the rules, and without paying any money into the EU for the privilege. 

It was delusional and it still is, none of that happened or ever could happen. Now what the leavers are so upset about is that Starmer’s “reset” may mean letting students and possibly other young people to come to the UK freely, and allowing some access to our fishing waters in return for better terms in some other areas such as a new deal on crime and far fewer checks on food and agricultural products. 

This is patently not an attempt to rejoin the EU by the back door, (I wish that it were) or treason or a betrayal of the referendum vote. Instead, it is exactly what Boris and a dozen other Brexiteers said we could have on a plate and more in 2016 just by asking. 

No, what it really represents is the fact that if a better deal is there for the asking with some sensible concessions on both sides; then we could and should have had it all in the first place. Your bad, Boris.

And that is why Johnson, Frost, Baker and Rees-Mogg are up in arms. The only thing they have achieved is falling around their ears. Sensible pragmatists have inherited their mess and are trying to clean it up.  

“Look on my works and despair”, it turns out is spot on. Boris Johnson’s work for his country was enough to make grown men weep, let alone despair. It is the realisation that the whole world now knows this that is driving the poor man mad.