Wednesday , October 9 2024

Paper Lions

This is a rather short article. I wouldn’t even call it an article – it’s more of an appeal or a statement.

Gareth Southgate and the England football team taught us to dream again. To look up to the hights we as a nation have once scaled, but fallen from many times.

They have shown us that to hope and lose, is better than to not hope at all. They have shown us that we can achieve much more than we think we can; that the old ‘Project Gloom’ fearmongers are wrong in relation to football. England’s best days are not behind them. We’ve seen a phenomenal rise of a new football team, and, even if they never get this far again, we’re within touching distance of medals and are already at the second highest position in a FIFA World Cup in the history of the whole team.

I wish I could say the same about the Brexit White Paper

England didn’t throw it away this time: They gave it their all

Can we say that about the Prime Minister?

Trump may be too outspoken and holds certain views that are – unusual – shall we say, but he’s got in right this time for sure: We can’t really have deals with the US, because we’re tied to the apron strings of the Common Agricultural Policy, of the overwhelming legal code and standards the EU bureaucracy uses to stifle anything that resembles innovation and improvement. What’s the point of this sort of BRINO (Brexit In Name Only)? And if Trump, who is actually quite the Anglophile feels that it is too much work for the US to negotiate a deal with a Quasi-EU nation, who will think it worth their while?

After all this time

And ‘Red Lines’

And speeches

And promises that ‘Brexit means Brexit’

Now the Prime Minister says Brexit means Remain

The fishers, the farmers and the industrial workers all saw what the EU meant and voted to leave

They will continue to be saddled with the negative aspects of Brexit

Theresa May told us in the Lancaster House Speech that we would be fully out

Not associate members of half in-half out

Now we hear she wants an “Association Agreement”

Maybe Gareth Southgate and his Merrie Men did something that May hasn’t done, they brought something back home.

A dream

The Prime Minister brings back never-ending nightmares and concessions  

Her hero was Sir Joseph Chamberlain – a radical classical-liberal and conservative who viewed the future optimistically,

He worked to ensure the future for Britain was better than its past

He had a Commonwealth Dream of Free Trade and fraternity

The Prime Minister has no dream

The Prime Minister has not worked to ensure our future is better than our past

The Prime Minister has no Commonwealth Dream

She may aim to be like Sir Joseph Chamberlain, but she’s acting more like Neville  Chamberlain

 

 

Personally, I have no confidence left in the leadership of Mrs Theresa May after this White Paper

It’s gone from bad to worse

 

You have sat too long for any good you have been doing.

Depart, I say, and let us have done with you.

In the name of God, go!

 

About Ted Yarbrough

Ted is the co-founder and editor of the Daily Globe. He is a long-time blogger on British politics and has written a thesis on Thatcherism.

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