Opinion

Tom Kelly: The protocol is fixable but a capricious government is not

Prime Minister Boris Johnson with Secretary of State Brandon Lewis at Hillsborough Castle in 2020. Picture by Brian Lawless/PA Wire
Prime Minister Boris Johnson with Secretary of State Brandon Lewis at Hillsborough Castle in 2020. Picture by Brian Lawless/PA Wire Prime Minister Boris Johnson with Secretary of State Brandon Lewis at Hillsborough Castle in 2020. Picture by Brian Lawless/PA Wire

LAST week, this columnist received an invitation to a garden party hosted by the Secretary of State, Brandon Lewis.

I declined.

Frankly, I would rather visit the dentist for root canal treatment without an anaesthetic.

Lewis epitomises everything which is wrong about this Tory government. He could be the Minister for Absurdity, if that position was not already contended for by the hapless Attorney General, Suella Braverman.

The NI Secretary of State has increasingly taken on the role of mudguard for the Prime Minister.

After every Johnson gaffe, Lewis hits the TV studios to defend the indefensible. If he had a shred of sense he’d forgo these preposterous media opportunities. Alas, he seems to prefer that his mediocrity and loyalty shines brightly. He is the Falstaff at the court of Chez Johnson.

Remember those memorable words about breaking international law but in a “specific and limited way”? Or better still “there is no sea border”.

There’s little point to the Secretary of State – he is as polarising as Johnson. His interventions have all the hallmarks of a man who is politically tone deaf.

The government he serves in has been the most partisan, one-sided, discriminatory and jingoistic British administration in over 30 years.

Remember the days when NI had big hitters as Secretary of State – Whitelaw, Hurd, Mowlam, Mandelson and Reid. Not any longer. It’s the leftovers and the politically dispossessed.

Whilst the Thatcher era was brutal in so many ways, as Prime Minister she always had a clear idea of where she was going. Thatcher also had a plan to reconfigure Britain economically and socially. She gave birth to a selfish culture of avarice – where the strongest survive and the vulnerable are left to perish.

To her credit (and counter-instinctively), she signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement which was pivotal in cementing future east-west relations between Dublin and London.

Johnson, on the other hand, leapfrogs incoherently from one mad cap idea to another. There’s no strategy, no game plan or leadership. Policy is made on the hoof. Or on the back of a Moët Chandon label.

Johnson and Liz Truss are making fools of themselves internationally. They move on the diplomatic dance floor with all the elegance of Ann Widdecombe and Chubby Brown doing the pasodoble.

The recent suggestion that they would dump the ECHR is incomprehensible. As the journalist Peter Oborne previously pointed out, the ECHR is a Tory legacy.

A legacy from Boris Johnson’s own self professed hero – Winston Churchill. The ECHR was envisaged and first proposed by Churchill in 1950. The principles of the ECHR were mainly drafted by British lawyers.

Withdrawal from the ECHR won’t wash.

To withdraw from the ECHR would breach the Good Friday Agreement. The Belfast Agreement is an international treaty. So too is the Withdrawal Agreement.

It’s solely the threats and actions of the British government which creates political instability within Northern Ireland.

Not the tantrums of the DUP/ TUV, or the ageing cranks in the Orange Order; not the mouthpieces for proscribed loyalist paramilitaries or even the sabre-rattling of wannabe rabble rousers.

If political stability unravels in Northern Ireland, the trail of social, political and economic carnage will lead right to the door of Number 10.

No one can seriously believe that Johnson has the capacity, capability, competence or credibility to recreate a Belfast Agreement Mark II. As the saying goes, you can watch a thief but not a liar. The parties to any talks would never trust him or his ministers.

Now Johnson has lost a second advisor on ethics in public life. Lord Geidt had an impossible job. In his own words, he was left in an odious position by the Prime Minister. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: “To lose one ethics advisor, Mr Johnson, is a misfortune but to lose two is pure carelessness”.

The NI Protocol is fixable but a frivolous and capricious is government is not.