Fewer than 500 people in Northern Ireland, members of the Conservative Party, had a say in electing Boris Johnson as their leader.
And yet this is the man who will decide our fate and whose decisions will have an impact on the future of the place where we live for decades to come.
There were some nationalists this week who expressed a view that this may be a short term disaster economically but a long term driver and push for a border poll.
Letting Johnson and his Brexit policies wreck the house to build a better one at an undisclosed period in the future is a risky strategy.
The reality is that we in the north have very little influence over what Johnson and his party advisers decide, because we have no electoral clout when it comes to electing a British Prime Minister.
We know the new leader has a relationship with the DUP and appeared at their party conference, Arlene Foster referred to him as a friend and the confidence and supply agreement still stands.
But that influence will only stretch until the inevitable general election, when it is almost certain that numbers in the Commons will change.
The DUP knows this and will have asked for concessions in return for support.
However, Johnson has already built up a reputation for making promises he doesn’t and seemingly has no intention of ever keeping.
Whether the new prime minister who vowed to deliver Brexit ‘do or die’ represents a new dawn or the start of an economic catastrophe remains to be seen.
Those who wanted to stop Brexit completely have accepted that they have lost the battle but the war is far from over.
Most business people have now resigned themselves to the inevitable and are campaigning for clarification on a deal that will at least allow them to make contingency plans.
Unionists see Boris Johnson as an ally, albeit a fickle one.
Nationalists see his leadership as another nail in the coffin of the union and an opportunity to push harder for a border poll.
Donald Trump welcomed the appointment saying “they call him ‘Britain Trump’ and people are saying that’s a good thing”.
This is despite the fact no one calls him that and if they did they’d at least have the sense to say ‘Britain’s Trump’.
What the EU think of the MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip we will get to see over the coming weeks and months.
Johnson has perfected his buffoon image, the posh English bloke from the political panel show Have I Got News For You.
Known as a TV personality first with a chequered personal life and a politician second you can see why Trump has warmed to him.
With less than three months to go until the current Brexit deadline, Britain seems to be no more prepared or further on in the planning for Brexit than it was in March. The EU have started putting a contingency in place and earlier this year signed off on 17 emergency no-deal measures.
However, they have repeatedly said they cannot and will not mitigate the overall impact of a no-deal scenario.
Emergency arrangements on aviation to ensure “basic connectivity” between UK and EU airports expire at the end of March next year.
The EU have also said this week that these arrangements are a contingency and not ‘side deals’ as some of the Johnson loyalists have alleged.
While business people, including those from the haulage and agri-food sector have been lobbying consistently since the referendum result, their future now lies in the hands of man who compared the Northern Irish border as being no different than the "border between Islington or Camden and Westminster".
The then foreign secretary comparing congestion charges to the movement of people, goods and livestock over a 310-mile border without imposing checks, does not bode well for the future.
But as I started by saying it is a future we here have very little control over, we are passengers and not participants in an act of economic self-harm that could eventually destroy the union Boris Johnson has been elected to preserve.
:: In my column of July 4, I said that the late Willie Frazer was a victim and I also referred to alleged connections between his family and the loyalist group known as the Glenanne gang. I would like to acknowledge that, according to a 2012 Historical Enquiries Team report, there was no evidence to suggest that his father, Bertie Frazer, who was shot dead by the IRA in 1975, was involved in paramilitary activity. I regret any upset caused to the Frazer family.
