15-07-2020

The main slogan, presumably dreamt up by he of dodgy eyesight Dominic Cummings, during the Vote Leave campaign in 2016 was “take back control”. It undoubtedly played into a narrative whereby the United Kingdom was still a world leader that had merely been in slumber during its membership of the European Union. The British “Empire” had got its wings clipped all this time.

One of the biggest moves the new Conservative government made only months after their election victory in December 2019 was to announce they would be allowing allegedly Chinese state influenced tech firm Huawei to play a key role in delivering a 5G network for the UK. This was a big pledge made during Boris Johnson’s leadership and election campaigns so it was important.

Questions were raised about the choice of Huawei and US President Donald Trump was critical.

Now six months later, the UK government has done a U-turn and is trying to flush all Huawei “kit” from the network. Some say this is over security concerns and others claim the United States has put pressure on the UK to make the move. Either way, this is most certainly not an example of a country that has taken “back control”.

If anything the United Kingdom has apparently become a pawn in a global game of Chess between the United States and China. This is not taking back control. This is merely being exposed to and bullied by the global giants.

Whatever happened to the strong and assertive new Britain that would emerge after Brexit? The global power that would have lots of deals on the table? The country that was supposedly meant to be revitalised by “independence”?

We won’t be allowing care workers to come from abroad thus adding up to a big assumption that we have our own willing work base to fill the roles? One can only call to mind the government’s phrase that our new deals were “oven ready”.

No, Brexit is a turkey that is far from oven ready. We are more likely to get food poisoning from this pathetic post-Brexit world and it will be the Chinese or the United States doing the stuffing and said turkey might well be chlorinated.

What the Huawei sanctions reveal are a government that got itself into power using a Trojan horse that is for the knackers yard only fit for glue. Disgracefully they have lied and cheated their way into Downing Street with the pretext they can reinvent and reinvigorate the UK. In reality they have put the country at risk and made us vulnerable to the US and China.