Dishonorable political parody proves this Tory government simply cannot be trusted

But while this can occasionally lead to arguments with your friends, most of us have always assumed that all sides mean what they say and behave honestly with what they have when the more important matters, such as . B. legally binding international treaties, are signed and promised to deliver.

Unless, it seems clear now, you’re a member of the Tory government, where treaties are treated as little more than confetti, tossed away when no longer convenient.

In recent years, most observers of the protracted and seemingly never-ending Brexit negotiations have warned us that the British are not playing an honest hand. Sometimes these arguments were based on simple Anglophobia – never trust Perfidious Albion – but on other occasions there was a genuine suspicion that the Conservatives were more interested in harassment and duplicity than finding a sane solution.

Those dubious suspicions have now become stark, grim facts. When British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, the woman best known for being a Margaret Thatcher wannabe, announced that they planned to tear up the Northern Ireland Protocol and replace it with a new and as yet undefined national law replace it, which would take precedence over the original agreement they had signed with the EU, we witnessed one of the most flagrant examples of political spoofing we have ever seen.

As is usual with politicians who spoof us, while speaking about scrapping protocol, she insisted that “it’s not about scraping protocol — it’s about achieving protocol’s goals.”

Honestly, all she lacked was pulling out the original contract and setting it on fire with a lighter in the middle of the House of Commons while laughing maniacally.

Her statement was shocking. But it wasn’t surprising. Ever since the cluster bomb (I can think of another expression, but it wouldn’t be appropriate for a family newspaper) of Brexit plopped on our doorstep, we’ve been treated to a masterclass of Tory mendacity, dishonesty and an almost extravagant disdain for the truth.

It didn’t have to be like this. Unlike many Irish hackers and columnists, I fully understood the motivations behind Brexit, even if I didn’t necessarily agree with many of them. In fact, I fell out with some friends who simply dismissed the 17 million voters who voted in favor of Brexit as nothing more than racists and Little Englanders.

The truth is always more complex than such a simplistic approach and we have done ourselves a disservice by vilifying 51 per cent of the British electorate as little more than idiots. Despite this, the current British government seems determined to prove the critics right.

At this point I’m wondering what the hell is going wrong in England right now? I say this as someone who loves England and enjoys the company of English people. Heck, I even married someone with an English passport (which has since been swapped for an Irish one as a direct result of Brexit).

Let’s put it this way: As someone who grew up in the urban, proud working-class area of ​​Crumlin, I’ve always felt I had more in common with someone of a similar background in, say, Manchester than with someone who grew up Irish to speak and work on a farm in Mayo.

While our cultures differ in many ways, they are inseparable, and while many of us—myself included—have a grá for America, our closest neighbors are also our best friends.

But if this insane drive to destroy signed treaties and simply ignore previous agreements continues, we will soon be glaring at our greatest enemy.

It should never have gotten that far. Boris Johnson’s “Get Brexit Done” mantra was enough to give him an 80-seat majority in the 2019 election, and he managed to secure the so-called red wall of the northern constituencies, which were traditionally cast-iron Labor seats.

I was in one of those Red Wall constituencies for a game recently (Oldham being relegated from the Football League) and while the conversation tended to focus on the decline of the Latics, there was nothing but contempt when Johnson’s name was mentioned. That’s because they now know they were sold a puppy. Places like Oldham, which Britain’s Office of National Statistics has named the most deprived city in England, don’t give Johnson a damn what’s really saying.

All Tory efforts seem centered on the unworldly idea of ​​creating a post-Brexit London, to use Johnson’s phrase, “a Singapore by the Thames” and to hell with everyone else – particularly the working class in northern England and, how as it happens, the Irish – or ‘bloody Oirs’ as some senior Tory MPs have called us.

Brexit has always been a bitter pill, but that is democracy. However, what we have witnessed in the last few days (and weeks, months and years) is simply an affront to the democratic process.

Your word is your bond? Not when Boris Johnson speaks. The British have every right to control their national sovereignty, but that doesn’t mean they can ruthlessly flout the international treaties they’ve insisted on. Come back sensible England. We miss you.