The Trill of The Stormont Brake and the Accidental PM
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The Trill of The Stormont Brake and the Accidental PM
Rish!, Queen Von de Leyan and Charles seize the day!
The Northern Ireland Protocol is dead. Long live the Windsor Framework! Announced by our young, very English, yet oh so (thank God) diverse PM under a photo of the Queen (the real one, Elizabeth). Then sealed by our oh so new EU partners (in the form of Ms. Von der Leyan) by tea with the King. Rish! (according to Rish!) has secured the safe continuation of our UK - a union hundreds of years old, but perhaps a little tattered by now.
No mention here of that other union you know the European one we want nothing more to do with except maybe the occasional high tea once in awhile and things like Erasmus and Horizon (who is churlish enough to deny students and scientists after all.) But who's counting.
Whatever else he believes - I mean who knows really - he does a masterclass in branding and presentation. It's almost as if (and I'm saying almost because again who knows really) Rish! put more work into the sale of the Windsor Framework to Britain then the framework itself. After all the big change a green lane/red lane ain't rocket science.
The Stormont Brake is just a take on a similar thing in the Good Friday Agreement. These were all, probably, ideas, refused 2 years ago by the smash it up idealogues led by the unmasterful Brexit negotiator, Lord Frost. Their champion Johnson - all ego, bluster, kitsch Latin phrases and bombast has been unseated by Rish! Are being shown up to be the over-privileged blowhards, the very worst of the English character as depicted in countless films. No Lawrence of Arabia those boys.
But who is this guy, Rish! really.... The unassuming everyman who just happens to be in the right place at the the right time. Rish! wanted to get into government and voila! found, bought, glided into a safe Yorkshire seat. He impressed all those folks with his youth and his money. Oh and he bought a nice house.
He must've been a very successful banker (and so young they thought) - after all he flew through it so quickly. He wrote a few think tank pieces on freeports through Brexit being better then the single market… a smart Brexit choice which let's face it in Yorkshire was the smart money bet. And voila! when Johnson's first chancellor implodes he's young, new naive? and Johnson plucks him as his neophyte chancellor.
Rish! Conveniently at the right place, right time glides in as Johnson's fresh Brexit bright boy, money cruncher. And boy did he during the pandemic. Money flying everywhere.
Then boom Johnson blows up (with just a little push from Rish!) I mean with Johnson it was just a matter of time after all. And Rish! was ready with a carefully planned campaign that had to be a product of some very expensive focus groups and branding experts.
They had been working for awhile to set up Rish! as the everyman successful son of immigrants rather then the successful son-in-law of a billionaire non-dom who didn't last very long in banking. But try and try the hardcore Tory members aren't ready for a Rish! They choose the fresh faced Thatcher acolyte-meme-in-an-Insta-click, Truss. She conveniently blows up as well (there must be something in their true blue coffee) in an unheard of spectacle and voila! right place, right time and up Rish! glides into the Prime Minister ship by a back door. Does number 10 have a back door?
So we have Rish! The accidental Prime Minister - Brexit positive working with a remainer Chancellor and a party (let's face it) scared of an electorate sick of them standing on ideological high ground while the public can't afford the sausage and egg for a half English breakfast.
It's foolish to predict but I bet Rish! is going to get his Framework through. It'll barrel past any DUP protest, (they will become irresponsible to their supporters otherwise) remember the tea with the King and bit about saving the Union. Farage's sausage on a stick comments and threat that the Tories will see electoral defeat in the next election are irrelevant in the face of the absolutely horrible polling of the last months and even Johnson seems strangely quiet. His animal instinct knows when to disappear to Capri - and who wouldn't this time of year. So Round 2 to Rish! (Round 1 being how he got the Prime Minister role to begin with.)
Yes. The Windsor Framework announcement was all going so swimmingly, even Biden patted him in the back and then… he pointed out what any sentient being knew - suddenly Northern Ireland will be the spot for setting up a business! The ultimate freeport so to speak and Rish! practically the hidden architect of the freeport economy, (remember that think tank book).
So now all those businesses in England drowning in red tape can set up there rather then France I guess. More Guinness than foie gras. Shouts of moonlighting as a remainer by the estimable ERG and then angry remonstrance by Scotland’s SNP ministers and Labour Party MP’s exclaiming we all used to have that ability before you fools even did Brexit were heard. It was Rish!’s only wrong step but the country is sick of the fighting and just wants to get stuff done now. So that didn't get him too far down a jack rabbit hole after all.
Enough with the bombast already the majority seems to be saying, move on and get working. There's a lot to do and Rish! just might get some things done. That'd be nice for awhile... Or at least until Boris bounces back…
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