Honestly, I think this country is well and truly fucked. I read the papers, I see the news on TV and hear it on the radio and more and more I see us going to hell in a handcart.
At the very heart of our problems is that complete lack of leadership in Britain. We have a government that is irreparably damaged from top to bottom “led” by a woman who has lost all her credibility. You do not need to be a rocket scientist to work out that this rudderless government is in a terrible mess. Just look at the recent utterances from top Tories. Chancellor Phillip Hammond says we need a lengthy transitional period when we leave the EU to the extent that when we leave in 2019, nothing will change straight away, including free movement. Phew! What a relief. But today, the man with a well paid non job, the secretary of state for international trade “Dr” Liam Fox, says he wants free movement to end in 2019. The Tory Party wants to avoid a cliff edge when we leave the EU and the Tory Party doesn’t. I hope that’s clear.
What’s worse for the Tories is that they are stuck with this mess for the foreseeable future. Having lost her majority by calling a disastrous and unnecessary election, May has become a lame duck, but they daren’t get rid of her yet for fear of the government collapsing altogether and letting Jeremy Corbyn enter number 10. The likelihood is that May will stagger on until 2019 when we leave the EU, May will be blamed for the mess that will occur and a new, charismatic and popular leader will emerge to take over. Or, more likely, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, David Davis, Phillip Hammond or, God forbid, Andrea Leadsom.
It is increasingly clear that in a country where two party politics has returned Labour should have done far better in the election. Jeremy Corbyn has rightly received praise for the campaign he ran but given what we now know about the sheer ineptitude of May and her party, I cannot help but thinking that a better leader than Corbyn would have won. Yet Corbyn and the comrades who surround him still seem to think he did win. Perhaps someone should tell him?
And Labour is every bit as divided as the Tories. Corbyn and John McDonnell have always been eurosceptics every bit as much as Nigel Farage and the right of the Tory Party and even now, in leadership, they ignore the clear policy of the Labour Party which is strongly pro Europe. Corbyn’s associates have been flying kites in recent weeks to see how far they can go with their preferred Tory/Ukip hard Brexit option and it is clear that they have had to row back to a softer Brexit position, for now.
It is hard to see how the country can get through this ludicrous impasse given the current political circumstances. As the economy begins to slow, as the pound sinks still further, as businesses shelve investment decisions because of the lack of certainty in the country, as people borrow at ever more reckless levels and keep spending money they haven’t got, it is clear that we are running into a lot of trouble and there is no clear way out of it.
Who, for example, looks at Liam Fox and thinks, “Hmm. He seems to be a decent sort of man!” Answer: no one. All you have to do is say Adam Werrity over and over again and you remember that he isn’t a decent sort of man. And his smarmy, know-it-all, superior, patronising attitude reminds you of everything that’s wrong with our politics today. From the buffoon act of Boris Johnson to the make-it-up-as-you-go-along attitude of David Davis, the Tory Party is in tatters.
Labour is, of course in a far better place with…oh dear…the likes of Diane Abbott, Richard Burgon, Emily Thornberry and the still ridiculous Corbyn at the top table. With almost all of their talent on the backbenches, Labour is anything but an alternative government, especially now that it’s crystal clear that Corbyn misled millions of young people by implying he was pro Europe when he is in fact as pro hard Brexit as Nigel Farage and by, effectively, lying about tuition fees.
Leadership matters and the truth is we have no leaders who can lead. The Liberals are on life support because of their role in propping up David Cameron’s nasty right wing government from 2010 to 2015 and the country will, in the coming years, lurch from crisis to crisis.
The next five years will be very hard to endure as we seek to extricate ourselves from Europe with no clear plan from anyone. There is no such thing as a good Brexit and May’s drivel about achieving the “best possible deal for Britain” is certain to mean a deal that is not as good, and in fact far worse, than the one we have now. That’s why this country is fucked.
