You would think, that on the night of such piercing high drama in Westminster, the lead photo of the day would be something to do with the British Prime Minister.

However, despite the magnitude of the drama of the Prime Minister Boris Johnson being defeated by the parliament tonight, the photo of the day is from Ireland and is that sight of the openly gay Taoiseach of Ireland shaking the hand of the ultra right Trump Administration Vice President of the United States of America as he urges the EU and “Ireland” to negotiate with Boris Johnson’s UK Government in good faith. The temerity of him.

This strikes me as the actual crux of the issue. Here we are again with a senior representative of the Alt Right US Administration coming to Ireland and arguably trying to pressurize Ireland. By pressure, it could be suggested that this visit is the maximum degree of pressure, trying to be polite, but pointed nevertheless. There is so much at stake, not only for Johnson and the Brexiter rump of his party, but for Trump, for Mike Pence and for Steve Bannon. That’s what this is about, and Pence and Trump know it all only too well. How enthralling it is to see them all panicking that the Irish obstinacy on the backstop is providing the single most immovable obstacle to the march of their populist right-wing movement. If Ireland manages to hold out, it will be a victory of detail over diktat, one that the architects of Brexit probably never even considered – the arrogant muppets that they are.

So while what is happening in Westminster is certainly interesting, this sub-story from Dublin is possibly the real behind the scenes clash of civilizations.

Those other big developments of the night are –

1.   The Conservatives have lost their majority
2.   The Prime Minister has lost a vote by 328 votes to 301

Finally, given that the title of this blog is the Full “Irish” Brexit, it makes sense that the main point should be that Boris Alexander Trump… er, I mean Johnson, is bare-faced lying about progress being made on renegotiating a deal with the EU. This is not a small insignificant lie, but rather a grandiose attempted deception, no doubt driven by the Prime Minister’s right hand advisor, Dominic Cummings, who is being blamed as the source of disquiet tonight amongst the Tory Rebels.

Click below for link to article:

Yikes. Yikes and yikes again.

What a tumultuous last weekend to the Summer recess. The Prime Minister of Great Britain, Boris Alexander Johnson has now issued a threat of “deselection” to Tory rebels who have themselves threatened to vote against him in a mechanism to stop the Brexiters leaving with no deal.

In terms of numbers, what that means now is that if they decide to vote against the PM, he has now said that if they so do, he has stated today that he will now call a general election. A general election in which those MP’s who are voting with their consciences and who have served in the Conservative Party for their entire careers will be prevented from running for that Party.

Those who had been saying prior to this that the Conservative Part of cannibalizing itself, must absolutely be convinced of it now.

It has been described as a risky strategy for Johnson, but that he has to take risks. This strategy is being described also as one of uniting the national leave party.

On the other side, the Remain vote could pull a Unite to Remain deal but that would still only give them roughly 53%.

History undoubtedly in the making like never before in this whole saga – a veritable war of the 2 ideologies.

So there’s an almighty game of chess going on and tomorrow is set to be the biggest day of all.  Biggest, because although Boris Johnson may be defeated in the No Deal bill, he may also try to call a General Election, however he will be relying on Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn to accept that request. And if Labour does not accept that, then the 31st October comes around and there could in fact be an extension, after which there would be a general election which Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party could do very well in.

And that brings home one very serious point which I have to admit, I have not really allowed myself to face up to in the whole saga. And that is that there may still not be, even after everything that has happened, there may still not be the actual democratic numbers for Remain. In other words, no matter what way it’s sliced and diced, the numbers for Leave, still outstrip the force for Remain. In which case, despite how much we might not like it, makes Remain actually undemocratic. But let’s see what happens tomorrow.

A few months ago people started talking about the possibility of the Brexiteers requesting the prorogation of parliament. At that time, this seemed like such an outside possibility that it seemed almost pointless even mentioning it. Here we are now for the first week in September and that seems to be exactly what is likely to happen.

It was requested today. And even more incredibly – it was granted.

It looks from this quite likely that she simply decided not to get involved, to stay out of the row and just grant it summarily. That could easily be a decision she regrets.

The whole thing seems to be tied up in legal and procedural wrangling to the extent that it’s starting to look almost unlikely that it will end in any way peacefully.

Of possibly as much significance today, Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Conservative Party in Scotland has announced that she’s about to quit. If it turns out she is one of the first of many – that could spell a turning point for the Brexit morons – hateful c#nts that they are.

In centuries to come, people will look back at this era and examine what it was that lead a proud people to humiliate itself to the extent that the British are now doing. They will look back at the history of this week and examine what flavour and degree of hubris would have lead a person such as Boris Johnson to visit Angela Merkel in Germany and Emmanuel Macron in France thinking that he was somehow, in some parallel universe going to force their hands.

Kudos to President Macron of France for absorbing the challenge from the increasingly far-right Conservative Leader of the British Government and for Frog-marching him back to the Airport empty-handed.

The Backstop is Indispensable

And that would appear to be that – the Irish Backstop is Indispensable. At this late date.  No flip-flopping there from Europe. No blink yet? Good lord, who would have ever believed that with only 70 days to go, Europe would still be standing up to this bullying brash brainless British Prime Minister. But reassuringly, that is exactly what they’re doing.

This is turning into a struggle between the civilizations. On the one side, we have the age old EU, well established, clear-headed, self-assured (maybe too much so) and above all – fair. On the other side, we don’t have Britain. We have a representation of the worst type of Briton, allied to the Far-right of Donald Trump’s America, and by extension, the brutal and highly effective interfering Vladimir Putin. So it is therefore highly loaded that Ireland and Europe stands firm.  Most Irish people are completely oblivious to the importance of the next 70 days from that point of view.

What interesting times we live in.

Mr. Johnson in No. 10 seems to rate the importance of how history judges political leaders’ performance – such as his hero Winston Churchill.

He’s kind of right actually. How it’ll all be seen in a historical sense is an important factor – maybe the MOST important factor. His problem is that he has backed the wrong horse. So now all he can resort to is spinning the truth in the hopes that the endless twisting of facts will somehow work it’s way into the history books and that he will look like an honest broker who was victimised by the EU. It’s possible that that strategy could work, but it’s probably not going to. It’s also very important that anyone who writes anything about Brexit is as informed as they can be and that they remain so.

Kevin Doyle in the Indo imagines so – this is worth a read.

Politicians facing the camera’s trying to convince the public of something which is to say the least “counter-intuitive” to most people as a contradiction of reality.

What is surprising however is when this type of attempted brain-washing comes from a senior British Government Minister, and not from a dictatorship based in the Middle East.

Yet that is what is happening now in relation to Brexit.

What has happened in those cases in history is that the regime’s mask eventually slips. It is increasingly looking like that could happen in the case of these poor unfortunates. Meanwhile they seem convinced that the more they keep approaching the same lies only from different angles, that somehow their opponents will somehow forget to keep opposing their assertions.

All of which points to an existential struggle between fact and fiction. The EU side doesn’t have to do very much work at all to keep asserting the facts, yet it must be careful that the limited efforts it must make are nonetheless effective. The Brexiteer side must work extremely hard, just to remain upright as it pushes it’s fabrications about who is most culpable for the mess of reality which they find themselves in.

When you listen closely to the tone and the intent of the commentary coming from the Leave side over the past week or so, you’re starting to hear a shrillness in the pleading. That’s new. It had not been there in March even though*/ that deadline was just as definite. Now, there seems to be a barely concealed quiver in so many of their voices. What this seems to be saying to me is along the lines of the following –

We were hanging tough waiting for the other side to come running to us. The charade we’re playing was supposed to have the effect of engaging everyone with our stance on our terms. Now it’s looking like that’s not happening. In fact, it looks like people are more interested in taking their Summer holidays and carrying on life as normal – the cheek of them. So we will have to raise the tone an octane or two in order for them to keep noticing us. Maybe if we start a spot of name-calling, they will more readily notice us.

Arlene Foster is the best example of this.

Appearing with an truly awful looking wind-swept hair do and that whinging tone about how they are somehow the victims – she has inadvertently leaked something which I’d say she didn’t intend to. And that is, that this time around they [Britain and the Unionists of Ulster, are the ones who are powerless]. They are dependent on the generosity of others to bail them out. And because of their uncompromising, repulsive stance up to now, no-one has the slightest intention of bailing them out, even by accident.  So they can whinge and cry foul all they want, it will not make the slightest difference. They are hitting the buffers now, and their political opponents know it all too well. Which is why it’s time to stop engaging with them. It’s time to leave them to have a little think. It’s time for a breather and for people to stop obsessing about them.

Personally, I believe they will have to be allowed to crash out in order to soak up the rash of populism across the globe. Britain is the most gung-ho proponent of political disruption, therefore they would perhaps be the most high profile casualty of it and it is probably necessary therefore that the rupture does now happen.  The ensuing crisis could easily be enough to see the end of the populist and far-right movements and would therefore be worth the risk of letting Johnson and Co. have their way.

While they will try to twist it that the blame would be on the EU, no-one will realistically be listening to them because the story of the chaos itself will be so dominant. The sooner or later, the grown-ups will take back control, the sooner the better.

The piece below is fascinating in that it gives an insight into how the rest of the world views the debacle. Interestingly, South Africans are becoming bored with the story already , which is really not surprising. Who wants to be listening to the intractable dialogue on such a thing. I’d say most people are just leaving Britain to do what it’s going to do and to wake the rest of us up when they have that done. And even that is very bad for the Brexiters. They’ve shocked and awed us all and by now we’re so not bothered about their game, that we’re no way interested in convincing them to stay. Problem for them, not us – sorry about that Arlene [of the lovely do above].

Just when we thought it was safe to consign ignorant, xenophobic sentiment in Britain against the Irish to some historic waste skip, like a bad 80’s pop song, it is now back in the charts.

This is hard to believe in many ways. But is it worrying? Or am “I” worried about it? Not really. Why not? Because I don’t believe that such a degree of stupidity has any real future. It’s not properly thought out, it has no place in a modern globalised market place and people in most westernized societies have seen too many social and economic advantages flow from a more modern pluralism. To be worried about it would be like worrying that Catholic Bishops would ever again going rule over the Republic of Ireland the way they did in the 1950’s and 60’s. They may make some inroads again in pockets, they may enjoy a come-back at some time and they may make a lot of noise about it if they do. But no-one will seriously ever let them gain a foothold again to the extent they used to have here.

Nevertheless, the tactic used by the Brexiteer cohort is gaining some headlines. Particularly a noted journalist has published an article in a noted English newspaper (neither of which I will be mentioning here for fear of cementing their notoriety any more than they have already gained from their outburst.

It would be important for people generally to ignore such inanity – both those targeted by the jibe themselves, as well as Irish generally. Neither the writer nor the constituency they are seeking to court are worth bothering about. Ireland can do it’s campaigning through maintaining it’s position on the backstop and only that. There is nothing to be gained by establishing eye contact with a schoolyard bully.

In the meantime, the Governor of the bank of England has been warning today of an economic slow-down in the event of a no-deal brexit and also cut it’s growth forecast.

Click pic below for Sky News coverage of Mark Carney’s statement.

Johnson came to Northern Ireland last night. He had dinner with the DUP. Optically, this has been criticised heavily – although it could be said that he needs to do this to preserve his confidence and supply agreement. We move on.

There was also an exchange with Mary Lou McDonald. Sinn Fein has been critical of the Prime Minister for snubbing the Irish Taoiseach for almost a week after coming into office.

Today they again repeated their call for a border poll in the context of a No Deal Brexit. When last they raised this topic, it seemed out of place, it seemed at best opportunistic, at worst antagonistic.

Today, it did not seem in any way misplaced – such is the change in atmosphere since that suggestion was last voiced and dismissed by most right thinking people. In fact, today it seems like a perfectly justifiable warning to the extreme Brexiteers. It’s saying no one wants your hard Brexit, but if you do decide to go that road, thank you very much you’ll be handing us the conditions for a Border poll. One which would probably be won by the Irish Nationalists. So while I never considered myself strongly in that camp, by now I would prefer a successful vote in favour of the unification of the island. If nothing else, to insulate ourselves even more from the rigors of the populist political forces of the Tory and Brexit parties in UK. At the very least it would be far more favorable than an Irexit – who could possibly trust the British to act in Ireland’s favour in any circumstances ever again after this debacle.

The next most interesting piece of journalism of the day came again from Sky’s Lewis Goodall.

In his piece, Lewis outlines how these inane parallels that are being drawn between Johnson’s Brexit and Churchill’s WW2 are completely misplaced.

This is an excellent piece, against the run of normal popular opinion in the UK.

In fact in this instance, as you read the Sky piece, it occurs to me that in fact it is the Republic of Ireland who could really be compared to the stoic courage of the Britain of World War 2. It is Ireland after all who has done absolutely nothing to bring about this crisis and yet is facing the biggest consequences. By extension, in fact it would be in no way outlandish to suggest this populist, far-right regime in Britain (as well as in the US) could easily be compared to fascist regimes. That should be some food for thought for moderate Britons.

A Walter Mitty esque British Prime Minister today came out of the woodwork to call Leo Varadkar to state some absurdities to him about how the Irish Backstop as well as the Withdrawal agreement had to go – all very matter of fact. As though anyone on this island gave the slightest fig about what he wanted.

And therein lies the story in this whole debacle.

For a little while there (maybe about 25 years or so) at last there were Governments in the UK who seemed to actually listen to the requirements of their near neighbours.

This version of British Conservative & Unionist party politics is a regression by about 30 years or more. A complete change of tack, which they hope will just be allowed to be glossed over without any resistance from those neighbours. They are working hard to get people to support that position of theirs.

The Irish side has been unified in the face of this twisted logic. The EU side has been unified in it’s defence of Ireland. Nevertheless, it’s hard not to think that Ireland needs to gear up on it’s own messaging if it does not want to bear the brunt of British Ire if it’s populist electorate doesn’t get it’s Brexit.

Huhh? Varadkar to Blame for Jeopardisng the NI Peace Process?

So says the Tory enthusiast referred to in this article –

This needs to be sort of, prepared for in Ireland. It  cannot be ruled out that this attempt by the Brexiteers to airbrush out the ridiculousness of their demands and pretend that their approach has been anything other than deceitful, could in fact be highly successful.