So begins another typical Johnson campaign of misrepresentation, misinformation, omissions, distractions, concoctions and of course those plain lies for which he is despised.
He really does think he can fool all of the people all of the time.
In his gallimaufry of an article in the Belfast Telegraph he actually has the nerve to claim commitment to ‘rigorous impartiality’ which his government has consistently disregarded. Just to prove it, as usual, he didn’t mention a nationalist community. He writes this when he was in the north threatening action, the opposite of impartiality, against the EU which will damage Ireland in support of one side’s biased view on the protocol.
He also invented something he calls ‘economic rights’ as well as a non-existent veto to claim those ‘economic rights’. No one will be fooled, not even the DUP whom he gives no reason to cave in and accept democracy, but on the contrary, every reason to hang on to see what he does.
Johnson put the brakes on Liz Truss and those around her who Johnson’s people were briefing against in the English press at the weekend, calling them knuckle-heads. Why? He’s on his best behaviour because of the arrival of a powerful American delegation this week, that’s why. Next week he’ll have forgotten the lies he’s told this week. Then he’ll send someone off to America to defend his position. Let’s hope he keeps sending people the calibre of Conor Burns and Lord David Frost.
Burns’s mission to the US last week was an abject failure. For a start the Americans know all about Burns. In case you don’t, he resigned as a minister in May 2020 after the Commons Standards Committee found him guilty of threatening to use parliamentary privilege to intimidate a member of the public to further his family's interests. He was suspended from the Commons for seven days. Naturally Johnson found him exactly the right person to send here as a minister of state. He went down like a lead balloon in Washington, where they found him not to be the authentic Irish person the NIO was claiming him to be. Although he’s Belfast born the old adage applies: being born in a stable doesn’t make you a horse.
Along with the bumptious Frost, according to the Irish Times, the British attitude caused “anger and puzzlement”. The British made sure the Americans knew Burns is ‘close to Johnson’. You can imagine how that went down. There’s bound to be an algorithm which automatically links distance from Johnson to credibility.
You can only hope Burns produced his prop, a huge wodge of paperwork required for lorries transporting goods here, which he displayed on Channel 4 News, a cause of great derision. Does Burns not realise that wodge is because of what your government, and specifically Frost, agreed in the protocol and Trade & Cooperation Act. It’s there, not because of the EU but because of you. That’s why there are miles of lorries at Channel ports.
Here’s another laughable contradiction in Johnson’s opening salvo on Monday. The article ignores the position Johnson’s government has taken on the protocol in the Commons and in court cases taken by misled unionists. Johnson and his government’s barristers have repeatedly told courts that the protocol is ‘absolutely consistent’ with the Good Friday Agreement, indeed protects it. Johnson said the protocol is “fully compatible” with the GFA which of course it is. Perhaps he still thinks so, or judges it is politically expedient at the moment to say so for on Monday, to unionist chagrin, he conceded the protocol will still be in operation in 2024 safeguarding the single market.
So, all is confusion. No one is any further on. It’s back to The Hunting of the Snark. “What I tell you three times is true”. Or maybe Alice in Wonderland. “I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
