Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/11/16/sic-semper-etonians.html
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I feel I need Boris Johnson explained to me. Why would he rather be dead in a ditch than end Brexit? I get the impression he’s too intelligent to sweep away all the predictions of the horrors that will follow from a hard Brexit. (Telling interviewers he likes to paint miniature buses, in hopes of SEO replacing searches for his lying Brexit bus, is right up there with purposefully messing up his hair before being seen in public, the better to be underestimated.) In what way, to him, is Brexit worth it?
I’ll accept “racism” as an answer, but I haven’t seen his racism especially well documented. Of course racism + high intelligence implies hiding that racism, so I suppose that could be it.
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He’s a Tory. Their end game is to take the UK back to the “good old days” of the Edwardian period, if not earlier, when he and his ilk were in charge and hoarding all the wealth. The racism is mainly a means to that end, a way of gulling the Know-Nothings into coming on board.
Conservative British 1%-ers don’t feel they can make that happen within the EU, which apparently isn’t doctrinaire enough for them in its own devotion to neoliberalism and austerity (the “Third Way” might as well be socialism, in the view of de Pfeffel and his lot).
I do appreciate that BJ is still self-deluded enough about his popularity to disregard Dominic Cummings’ advice, giving us this satisfying spectacle.
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Appreciate the explanation!
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I resent the implication that remainers are all rich. It’s not about being part of a metropolitan elite, it’s about economic literacy and not being a racist, FFS. And, besides, that lying git in no way hangs out with anybody who doesn’t want the UK to leave the world’s largest trading block. It’s about keeping financial opacity and breaking resistance to oligarchy, his mates the rich are all for it.
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His goal was to become Prime Minister. He used Brexit to get the job, and he thinks that “getting Brexit done” is the way to keep the job.
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If you mean the title, it refers to something that Dominic Cummings says at the beginning of the video.
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With regard to Brexit, Johnson seems to have taken whatever position would advance his career, relying on the support of a particular group of people (much like Trump). He wasn’t originally even pro-Brexit (until after the referendum), so it’s not a matter of his beliefs. He resigned, supposedly, from May’s cabinet because he so disliked her Brexit deal, but he recently took credit for a “new” EU exit plan that was apparently just what she had negotiated, with no meaningful changes.
What I don’t get is how he thinks this will benefit him in any kind of medium or long term - as soon as Brexit happens, it’ll be a horror show that he can’t wriggle out of. Maybe he’s not thinking very long term, hoping that’ll be far enough in the future (even once Brexit “happens,” it’ll likely be a matter of starting a process of long-term negotiations, coasting along on existing rules) that he’ll have moved on, happy with a few years as PM. (Doesn’t seem like he’ll get even that, though.) Or he thinks he can blame all disasters on sabotage of his brilliant Brexit vision. Also the Tories seem to be adopting (or trying to) a number of Republican policies aimed at disenfranchising voters who would be against them. So the long-term strategy might be similar to the Republicans - disingenuously get into power and then undermine democracy itself to stay there as the disaster they created unfolds.
But what we have to keep in mind is - his intelligence is overestimated. He plays the clown in large part to distract from the fact that he actually is rather incompetent. (Everything he’s tried to do as PM has failed.) His privileged background and connections continue to elevate him into positions far beyond what he’s capable of filling, as they have his whole life.
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We’ve had 10 years of tory austerity (an ideology) straight up killing people, the rise in food banks and severe cuts to people services and with supercuts like this you’d think it’s looking pretty dire for them! Yet they are currently steaming ahead in the polls…
Are labour that weak as opposition? Why, yes, yes they are.
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My neighbor, from Scotland, says Boris is a twat. I believe him.
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If you define “strong opposition” as “persuading mainstream, establishment media to permit you to be seen that way”, then Labour are not doing well on that score.
And it’s true most people do define it that way, and will never read a party manifesto, google questions on their own, watch unedited parliamentary proceedings (other than as panto), etc.
But the thing is, in those terms, there can never be a “strong opposition” that doesn’t swear fealty to the neoliberal consensus. It is hard to overstate this point: the news, including the Guardian, will never draw your attention to Jeremy Corbyn saying anything that might make you vote for him. And he is consistently saying those things (as are quite a few other left-wing Labour candidates). But you have to go looking for it, because guess what the establishment is not interested in working to turn you against itself
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That does make me wonder how things would be if the Labour leader wasn’t a nostalgia-addled old Eurosceptic but was otherwise fairly progressive and promised to try to push back on the EU’s neoliberal-lite consensus by remaining a member state.
The right-wing press would still never support such an opposition to the Tories, but the rest of the establishment media would likely support a full-throated Remainer who promised a second referendum with enthusiasm instead of begrudgingly. Beyond the sensationlistic news it makes, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of appetite for actual Brexit amongst the centre and left of the UK’s media elites.
All speculation, of course. Like it or not, Corbyn is the candidate for PM in December.
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I don’t dispute that and yougov polls should definitely be taken with a pinch of salt but it feels like labour should be way out in front by default given what bastards the tories have been for the last 10 years. Propped up by the libdems for part of that, no less. Obviously, the brexit party vote looks to be going to conservative and the remain vote is split.
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That’s right. Boris IS a twat! Your neighbour is correct. 
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9 years. Just saying.
It’s weird enough that we’ve spent more years making Wild West movies than the Wild West as depicted actually existed… But to want to return to a weirdly short snapshot in time and stay there…
…I guess is in vogue, because the MAGA folks seem to want to return to that Post WWII stint we had going on. Post-bomb, pre-Hippies.
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Just search for Stephen Fry Brexit YouTube videos. Mr. Fry explains excellently what Brexit really is about, and why BoJo and his ilk are pushing it.
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These are exactly what I needed, thank you very much!
Here’s one from 5 months ago (there are a couple more recent):
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