Boris Johnson: Unelected Pied Piper leading his country into the gates of Hell
Open Letter to Boris Johnson, unelected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, who is about to lead the UK into the worst kind of socio-economic nightmare
Dear Mr. Johnson,
As you go stomping up and down your country promising the Earth and more to those who gather to see you, you will probably somewhere along the line become convinced that the handshakes and smiles and the shouts of "Go Boris!" are genuine. They are. The problem is, the minority that turns out to see you are the same minority that would pay to go and see a freak show.
Remember one thing: you were not elected as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and therefore you represent nobody but yourself and your interests. As you promise high speed rail links, and to make the north of England the country's powerhouse, ask yourself why this has not been done before despite numerous promises by numerous politicians searching for votes somehow and somewhere. Then ask yourself how such things can be paid for.
Lies, lies, crass mistakes and more lies
Now before you answer that with some kind of lie (remember the 350 million pounds a week for the National Health Service? That was a good one wasn't it? Fooled them there, didn't you? Now perhaps you would like to pay the shortfall from your own pocket, or do you not place your money and your mouth in the sphere of ethics and good morals?) remember that you are about to embark on one of the most blatant exercises in self-destruction every undertaken by any politician anywhere in the world, second only to the idiotic campaign of Marcus Licinius Crassus (let us use an analogy from the classics which you enjoy) who marched his legions straight into the desert at Carrhae in 53 BC and saw his seven legions and a further 50,000 auxiliaries and cavalry decimated by the Parthian horsemen, who lost a total of 38 cataphracts (armed knights). The term "crass mistake" comes from there. The losses you will incur for your country will be paramount in scale.
Maybe in the UK in some years' time if you get your way they will refer to a BoJo mistake made by the Dude himself. Now for the first time in your life, sit down, please, and listen.
Quite how the Conservative Party members voted for you and not Jeremy Hunt defies logic but then again, I suppose the people who voted for you have their heads in the sand, wake up to an orgasm of national pride as they tuck into their carcinogenic English breakfast, many of them over 60 years of age who get off on waving Union flags and bawling obscenities such as "Britannia rules the waves!" outside pubs as they drink that luke warm liquid you guys call beer and hold burping contests. With the girls.
They are the type of person who was fooled by the lies spoken during the Brexit campaign, who swallowed the hype hook. line and sinker.
And here is the rub. As a politician you do not have the right to mislead people, you do not have the right to lead your country to a very dark place and you do not represent the majority because every single opinion poll today puts the Remain vote ahead of the Brexit vote, and especially ahead of the idiotic No Deal Brexit that you threaten to deliver.
Your epitaph won't be pretty, Dude
If you knew anything about politics or democracy, as you claim to do, you would understand that saying you have to deliver Brexit because a few more people voted for something in 2016 than against it, when the campaign was based on lies and has been declared full of irregularities, and when today many of those who voted Leave have passed away and many more young people want to Remain, you are stating that in fact you are undemocratic and could not care a hoot about the futures of the country's youth. You will be dead by the time they reach your age and your legacy will be written clearly in the history book. It won't be pretty, Dude.
If you knew anything about economics you would realise that any form of Brexit spells disaster for the United Kingdom because this is a world of trading blocks, large trading blocks. You are part of one, in which you have access to a market of 450 million people, with whom you trade for free (after paying the administrative costs of course) and in which you have a vote and a say in the decision-making process. So much is obvious and you know this.
What you are proposing is to leave the block, pay for access to the markets, pay more to import their goods, sell fewer goods because yours will become more expensive, see Universities and research centers close, shedding thousnds of jobs at a stroke; with the uncertainty caused by this mess the pound will plummet, billions will be vaporized from the Stock Exchange, the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises which are the backbone of your economy will be forced to close if the margins are even minimally squeezed, which they will be, and a lot. This will involve massive unemployment, a growing social cost in benefits payments, so less money available for public services, worse hospitals, worse schools, no money for the extra 20,000 police you promised (cost 500 million for starters), and no money for high speed rail links from Manchester to Leeds.
Let's get real, Boris. If you cannot add up the sums to find out how to finance your promises, find someone who can. The trouble is you cannot because Brexit will empty your coffers.
Now, if you think that the feelgood factor is going to magically lead the UK into some kind of trading nirvana, and countries are going to flock to buy your goods, well it isn't happening, is it? Who is going to sign a trade deal with the UK when the reciprocal measures from the EU will mean that people have to choose between a market of 66 million and one of 450 million?
Trump uses treaties as asswipe
So you have Trump making noises about treaties. Wow, eh? Look what he does to treaties. He uses them as asswipe. And after Trump?
As for your claim that the EU will change tack when the UK says it is going to leave without a deal, I can assure you that this will certainly not happen and the fact that you think it might, and say so, means that you are dangerously out of your depth and I simply do not understand how someone like your good self could ever find himself inside Number Ten Downing Street, spouting such barefaced nonsense. Nobody says this to your face because they do not have the courage but it is a fact and everyone is saying it behind your back. The only ones with you are your tiny inner circle and when the heat is turned up they'll leave the kitchen like rats abandoning a sinking ship.
The other 27 EU members signed a treaty with the UK and that is the treaty they will expect the UK to respect. Or has the UK now become like its bedmaster, the country you were born in, meaning that its word is good for nothing? And anyway what pig-headed arrogance expecting 27 countries to bend over and lower their pants just because the UK wants to be stupid.
I will tell you what they say because I have heard it straight from their mouths: They say that if the UK wants to dig its own grave, then so be it. As for your No Deal idiocy, I will not tell you what they say.
Something dark has lunged behind the eyes of the British psyche
And finally, I hold you personally responsible along with that bunch of po-faced twits that went on that stupid Brexit campaign with you from your party and that other guttersnipe who after years earning a fortune from Brussels bites the hand that feeds him and then says he is skint (he can't be very good at managing his money can he?), responsible for something nasty and sinister that has happened to the UK. Something dark has lunged behind the eyes of the British psyche.
The British people were famous for being reserved, but polite and gentlemanly, until the football hooligan tarnished the country's reputation. Then as more and more Brits could afford to travel, people saw them as fun-loving, kind, considerate and open-minded, just like everyone else. People flocked to the UK to work, to marry, to settle down and contribute to the country's well-being, just as foreigners have always been a part of Britain's fabric since Roman times. You will be aware of Bede's Ecclesiastical History in which he tells of the Britons asking the Romans for help against the English (Germanic tribes), you will be aware that the Belgae lived on both sides of the Channel as did the Parisi. And when the going gets tough the British Army likes to call on the Gurkhas, does it not?
But since 2016, the mood has changed. I hear stories of foreigners being insulted in the streets, in fact the social media is full of them, people say that the English people barely tolerate them and treat them with disrespect and contempt if they look different or speak differently. Many of the British people, visibly, have become racist, nasty and downright unpleasant. I myself was approached by some rude cow last year when visiting your country who told me to "spoik Inglish", in some dreadful kind of regional accent I could barely understand, because I happened to be speaking Portuguese in a supermarket. I asked her if she had been to Brazil. She had not. Portugal? Yes. Algarve. OK what language did you speak there? "Inglish". I said then you should have spoken Portuguese. Arrogant bitch. Silence.
Silence. Maybe more of you should put your thinking caps on before you destroy your country and ruin the futures of its youth. People get the idea of Brexit, nobody likes interference from Brussels but when you have to come together in a block you have to take the rough with the smooth, you have to give and take. It's called cohabiting. But you have to show political maturity and understand the world you live in, not some pie-in-the-sky idea of a Great Britannia gallivanting around the globe stealing resources, screwing up entire countries, leaving India with a literacy rate of three per cent after three centuries of rule, drawing lines on maps, massacring people, shooting natives in the whites of the eyes, eh whatty what what, and civilizing the rest with the Bible and the bullet? That sort of behavior got you guys hated a century and a half ago, don't go there again.
You're European, get used to it. The Romans put the Great in Britain
You're European, get used to it. As Prime Minister and as an intelligent and learned man, you should be aware of that and you should understand that castles built on the sand fall down because they are the work of foolish men. You are not a Cnut, or are you? (King Cnut tried to order the waves of the sea to recede and ended up being pulled from the water when it was up to his neck). You should understand that Britain got its name from the Romans who called you Prettani, or the tattooed ones, you should know that Great Britain was so named by the Romans because the other Celtic "Prettani" were the Bretons in Little Britain, and no I am not speaking of Matt Lucas and David Walliams. The Romans put the Great in Britain.
Your place is in Europe as an active member, not floundering around thrashing about on the sand waiting for a miracle. Do not lead your lemmings off the cliff. You are not a Don Quixote, you are a gifted and intelligent, cultured and educated man. Rather than playing the fool, show some courage and leadership. Cancel Brexit as a bad idea. Those who complain will be dead within two decades, most of them, the others will be retired and waiting for the day they meet their Maker within a decade. Britain's youth is with me on this and against you. They are the future, think of them and think of a vibrant United Kingdom within the EU working on the inside for change (many would be with you) but not bolting the door, throwing away the key and then seeing you are standing on the end of a branch that you have sawn off at the trunk.
Photo: Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7387124
Photo 1: Pied Piper
Photo 2: The author in 2018
Best regards,
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Twitter: @TimothyBHinchey
timothy.hinchey@gmail.com
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey works in the area of teaching, consultancy, coaching, translation, revision of texts, copy-writing and journalism. Director and Chief Editor of the Portuguese version of Pravda.Ru since 2002, and now Co-Editor of the English version, he contributes regularly to several other publications in Portuguese and English. He has worked in the printed and online media, in daily, weekly, monthly and yearly magazines and newspapers. A firm believer in multilateralism as a political approach and multiculturalism as a means to bring people and peoples together, he is Official Media Partner of UN Women, fighting for gender equality and Media Partner with Humane Society International, promoting animal rights. His hobbies include sports, in which he takes a keen interest, traveling, networking to protect the rights of LGBTQI communities and victims of gender violence, and cataloging disappearing languages, cultures and traditions around the world. A keen cook, he enjoys trying out different cuisines and regards cooking and sharing as a means to understand cultures and bring people together.
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