By Chris Bovey

Just after the Brexit vote, I think it’s safe to say there were a lot of people in the country who were genuinely optimistic and thought we could make a go of it, becoming better off as a nation.

Obviously, that’s now been proven bollocks, but in 2016 many decent people who had been misled were not concerned about the consequences of Britain leaving the EU.

Not I. After the referendum, I warned it would be a massive clusterfuck. I was right.

The Brexiteers’ tune has changed a bit since then. They are now telling us the job losses and economic hardship will be worth it. Had they said that before the referendum I’m absolutely 100% sure Leave would have lost.

“Vote for job losses, economic downturn, currency devaluation and become an international laughing stock … let’s leave the EU” – simply doesn’t have the same ring about it – even if they could just about manage to fit that onto the side of their fucking bus.

In the case of BoJo the Clown, it is already widely accepted that a Johnson Premiership will be a disaster even before he’s got the top job.

I am not imaginative enough to predict how bad BoJo in Number 10 will be. The only confidence I have in him is to say cringe-worthy crass comments on a regular basis, waste billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money, mismanage public services, announce stupid undeliverable policy initiatives, give tax cuts to billionaires and cock-up the Brexit negotiations even worse than Theresa May.

Bypassing Parliament

BoJo has even threatened to prorogue or suspend parliament in order to drive through a no-deal crash-out from the European Union.

A former Conservative Prime Minister, Sir John Major, has even said he would seek a Judicial Review in the Courts to stop this egotistical sociopathic maniac and soon to be next Tory Prime Minister from bypassing Parliament.

The referendum was over three years ago, but my memory isn’t bad. I remember lots of talk about taking back control and British parliamentary sovereignty.

Let’s not even bother to ask the rhetorical question: “How is bypassing Parliament to impose the will of one man voted for by less than 0.2% of the British electorate to enable him to crash us out of the EU with no deal taking back control in anyway restoring Parliamentary sovereignty?”

OK, I just did. I was always of the opinion we never gave away that much sovereignty, since only around 13% of British laws have their roots from Europe and they’re broadly uncontroversial ones to enable the Single Market to work. They are also laws we have a say in shaping, forming and proposing.

Full facts

Only 2% of EU laws were voted against by the British government in the last 20 years.

According to Full Fact:

Official EU voting record show that the British government has voted ‘No’ to laws passed at EU level on 56 occasions, abstained 70 times, and voted ‘Yes’ 2,466 times since 1999. In other words, UK ministers were on the “winning side” 95% of the time, abstained 3% of the time, and were on the losing side 2%.

Which EU law are you looking forward to getting rid of?

James O’Brien once asked a caller to his radio show which EU law a Brexiteer was most looking forward to getting rid of. Ashley from Pinner eventually conceded he wasn’t able to.

James’ question always gets the same response when I try it on a Brexiteer.

I ask Gammons if they are looking forward to being allowed to dump raw sewerage in our bathing waters, rivers and seas again. Maybe they want a return of rip-off mobile phones roaming charges. Or perhaps they long for the return of energy inefficient lightbulbs, so we can have higher electric bills and use more energy at a time when the planet is facing the challenge of Climate Change.

The Brexit Party might be Climate Change deniers, but that does not mean the rest of us wish to ignore scientific consensus by recklessly continuing to pump out greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. In particular, the younger generation that hates Brexit the most are also the most concerned about global temperature rises, as unlike the Gammons, they’ll still be alive if and when it happens.

BoJo the Clown, the Tory choice, not the nation’s

BoJo the Clown may be the choice of the dwindling membership of the Conservative Party, which consists mainly of coffin dodgers, Nazis and no one else, to steer UK plc up shit creek without a paddle. He’s not mine.

It will not be put it to the British people to see if they too want this unmitigated liar, fantasist and someone who continues to dissemble, exaggerate and disinform to be Prime Minister (this is a polite speech for “complete and irredeemable fucking liar of the most odious kind”).

Bollocks Johnson said in 2007 when Gordon Brown took over from Tony Blair as Prime Minister:

“They voted for Anthony Charles Lynton Blair to serve as their leader. They were at no stage invited to vote on whether Gordon Brown should be PM. They voted for Tony, and yet they now get Gordon, and a transition about as democratically proper as the transition from Claudius to Nero. It is a scandal. Why are we all conniving in this stitch-up? This is nothing less than a palace coup … with North Korean servility, the Labour Party has handed power over to the brooding Scottish power-maniac. “The extraordinary thing is that it looks as though he will now be in 10 Downing Street for three years, and without a mandate from the British people. No one elected Gordon Brown as Prime Minister.”

This should be of no surprise from the now Arch-Brexiteer who said during his hapless tenure as Mayor of London:

“If we left the EU, we would end this sterile debate, and we would have to recognise that most of our problems are not caused by ‘Bwussels’ [sic], but by chronic British short-termism, inadequate management, sloth, low skills, a culture of easy gratification and underinvestment in both human and physical capital and infrastructure.”

He also expressed support for remaining in the Single Market back in 2013 as well as writing two articles, one in favour of remaining in the EU and one against, before deciding which horse to back.

UK Prime Ministers seem to tend to get progressively worse. Who’d have thought after the Iraq War debacle we’d be longing for Tony Blair to come back or find ourselves repeatedly reading eminently sensible comments by Sir John Major in the media?

How bad will Boris be?

The honest answer is, I don’t know. I just know he will be bad. For sure he’ll provide some comedy for non-Brits making a fool of himself on the world stage shaming our nation. It’s quite possible he’ll soon make a gaffe so bad even the loons in the Tory party will regret crowning this clown.

Theresa May surpassed Dodgy Dave in her patently unique unsuitability for High Office.

To be worse than Cameron and May, BoJo will have to up the anti a bit. I have every confidence in him to do so. Don’t forget, as well as the disastrous prospect of a ‘no deal’ Brexit, we shall also have the completion of the Tory project of privatising the NHS and making our country Donald Trump’s patsy to look forward to.