The Poverty of Brexit

Security after Brexit

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I will never feel sorry for Boris. He is another narcissist prepared to take his country to the brink for his own ends.

Some advice for those that are not clothe eared

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Keir Starmer MP, Labour’s Shadow Brexit Secretary, responding to the Foreign Secretary’s speech, said:

“This speech underlined the Government’s real intentions; a Brexit of deregulation, where rights and protections are casually cast aside and where the benefits of the Single Market and the Customs Union are ignored.

“Nobody will be fooled or reassured by the Foreign Secretary’s empty rhetoric. His insistence on deregulating our economy is the opposite of what businesses and trade unions want to hear.

“Instead of building the consensus we need, the Government’s approach will only further divide the country and put jobs, rights and living standards at risk.”

Hope it was a purple carrot, not a William of Orange one.

Can you imagine Boris at PMQs!

"Must be a tough job being a Parliamentary sketchwriter when actual transcripts of what was said reach Dead Parrot levels of absurd hilarity."
One response to Michael Deacon.

twitter.com/davidallengreen

I can nearly feel myself feeling sorry for Boris - if I wasn't laughing so much.

twitter.com/MichaelPDeacon/status/963755157094850560

The independent article is about Richard and going to the UN as the foreign office are useless. It will be in the paper tomorrow, I think.

There is some work going on for Nazanin Jen, I think by the Foreign Office. I would need to check this but I think it is the UN they are trying to get to seen someone on the basis that Nazanin is being tortured by the cat and mouse treatment she is receiving. That probably needs checking but her husband was talking about it a couple of days ago.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-iran-latest-torture-un-jail-prison-husband-richard-release-boris-johnson-a8210126.html

He hasn't helped Nazanin yet. He's useless as a foreign secretary.

Good question Durhamjen.

So what hold does he have over May that she kept him in position?

I remember cringing at BJ's awful bumbling speech at the end of the Beijing Olympics -some nonsense about wiffwaff.

He has always been a total embarrassment to this country. I can't think of anyone less suitable to be our foreign secretary.

"It was the pathos rather than the hypocrisy that really struck home. The entertainer who used to sell out the O2 and now can’t even buy a gig as a warm-up act in front of a captive afternoon audience of retirement home residents. Boris Johnson tried all his familiar tricks. He smirked. He trotted out some bad gags. He spoke a bit of Latin. He went off on predictable riffs.

All things that had worked so well for him in the past but now fell completely flat. He was a man with only his own narcissism for company. And there’s no lonelier place than that. He coulda been a contender. He coulda been someone. Instead of the bum he now is.

This was the speech in which the foreign secretary was supposed to be making the positive case for Brexit. But like so much of what Boris does, the subtext was all about him. His need to justify his own decisions. His need to be taken seriously. His ambition. He spoke a lot about unity and bringing people together, but right at the end he couldn’t even bring himself to say he wouldn’t resign from the cabinet and launch his own leadership bid if Theresa May didn’t deliver his Brexit vision. "

John Crace in the Guardian. I think Boris has really lost all credibility after this speech.

Anna Soubry looked totally ashamed of him. I am too. He represents our - not just his - country as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. The world has gone mad.

I forced myself to listen to that speech, expecting to hear something I hadn't heard before -what a let-down, just the same old slogans and platitudes.

There is no doubt that "bring back control"is a brilliant slogan which probably won the referendum, but what does it actually mean?

If we leave the EU, but still want to trade with the EU (44% ouf our trade), we will have to abide by EU rules without having any say in forming the rules. Right now, as EU members, we have an important say and a veto. If we were to leave we would have to GIVE UP CONTROL.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2018/02/14/i-wish-but-i-cant/

Anna Soubry wants him out now as well. Again.

Dunt seems to think we are heading for Canada goods only! How would that work as we are 40% services?

I don't think Prof Michael Dougan thought much of BJ's speech.

Quoted on twitter by Liverpool Uni:

Professor Michael Dougan on @BorisJohnson's speech today:
"Boris Johnson is confirmed in post as Charlatan-in-Chief of Brexit Britain. Another intellectually bankrupt speech crawling with distortions and fantasies. But of course: still no actual substance whatsoever...

Never known Ian Dunt to swear so much.

Well! I didn't think Boris was talking to me but ID and those who left comments were certainly watching the same awful, spineless speech in which said he would talk to those who want to remain - and he did for about two seconds - and then re-ran the ever weakening arguments.

So the young are beginning to rise against this, Soros is rising against it, I doubt that business will be pleased and what on earth will the anti Brexit Politian's think of this little speech! Add to that the half of the country that didn't want it in the first place and the growing numbers of 'I voted leave but wish it would just go away now' voters and I think/hope some momentum could start to move the strange grouping in parliament who have been trying to force through the wishes of the "far right leavers because it will make us rich" grouping.

I can totally understand the last comment. Off for a read. Thanks Maizie.

If it's of any interest, Ian Dunt did a running commentary on BJ's speech on twitter:

twitter.com/IanDunt/status/963732966672420864

His penultimate comment:

Slim pickings. Unfortunately it is too early for gin.