#Brexit: The Brexiteer is Brexecuted

A DEAD STATESMAN

I could not dig: I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.

Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.

What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?

Rudyard Kipling                                      

The favourite

This is a blog I had wanted to write for a few days when I discovered the Rudyard Kipling poem titled ‘A Dead Statesman’, but the time was not ripe for it to written until this morning,

At the back of my mind, I had heard just a few days before on the possible contenders for the leadership of the Tory Party the opinion of a Tory MP that the favourite never wins.

I probably should have laid a wager at that point that Boris Johnson, the flamboyant and charismatic face of the #Brexit campaign, who was considered the favourite to become the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom will not claim the prize.

The knifing

Yet, this morning as I was having breakfast, I was in shock when I saw on television that Michael Gove, the Justice Minister who was Boris Johnson’s sidekick was running for the leadership job.

We must not forget that during the #Brexit melee, Michael Gove famously adopted the anti-intellectual stance that we should ignore all the experts that ‘prophesied’ disaster for the UK if we did #Brexit.

Then again, within 24 hours of the #Brexit vote, the proponents were backpedalling on the talking points that formed the basis of the #Brexit campaign, the £350m we were supposedly paying into the EU was not really so, the NHS was not going the retained moneys, we really would not be able to reduce immigration after all, because Europe is not at our door with a begging bowl for our trade.

The excoriation

We have become independent and probably sovereign but diminished in influence, economic power, clout and are in limbo with a rudderless government and an opposition engaged in internal insurrection. Project Fear has become Project Fact according to Lord Heseltine and the reality we face is, no matter the gloss we put on it, grim.

Lord Heseltine was no shyster when he laid into Boris Johnson who having given Nigel Farage’s odious campaign a veneer in credibility, his vitriolic excoriation is also a statement of the consequence of #Brexit and it would do well that we note his words.

"I think there will be a profound sense of dismay and frankly contempt."

“He’s ripped the party apart. He’s created the greatest constitutional crisis of modern times. He’s knocked billions off the value of the nation’s savings. He’s like a general that led his army to the sound of guns and at the sight of the battlefield, abandoned the field - to the claims of his adjutant who said he wasn’t up to the job in the first place.”

“I’ve never seen so contemptible and irresponsible a situation. It’s a free society. There’s no question of punishment. He must live with the shame of what he’s done.”

“This process, which would not have happened without him, has now left a great gaping hole in the future of Britain’s decision makers. Not just Britain’s decision makers but all over the world, people thinking about investing in this country don’t know what the future holds. The priority now is for that question to be answered and quickly. We cannot just let this thing drift as everyone makes speeches and pontificates.” [Mirror]

In another interview, Lord Heseltine went on to say that Boris Johnson was like, “a general who marches his army to the sound of the guns and the moment he sees the battleground he abandons it … The pain of it will be felt by all of us and, if it doesn’t get resolved shortly, by a generation to come yet.” [The Guardian]

The odium

Meanwhile, Nigel Farage in his valedictory speech at the European Parliament where he accused his colleagues of never had a job or created jobs in their careers, one can only be bemused that Nigel Farage has idled in that parliament for 17 years when he was supposed to be representing our interests.

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His penchant was to obstruct, to insult, to abuse, to belittle, to bluster and to exhibit the most reprehensible and undiplomatic conduct to partners who we needed to persuade and with whom it was necessary to find agreement; a polar opposite of the global consensus builder Winston Churchill, and we wonder why we always got a raw deal from Europe when we sent the worse of our lot to beat the drums for our interests.

And so back to the poem at the top and the blog, the lies that undo statesmen and bring political careers to an end, if anyone is weeping for Boris Johnson, crocodiles have shed more pitiful tears. The damage wrought by his perfidy reverberated around the globe and it will harm us for generations. There is no way he deserved to reach to for helm of government which many thought was his selfish aim for siding with #Brexit.

Like the Shakespearean play, when Marcus Junius Brutus knifed Julius Caesar, the Brexiteer has been Brexecuted.