Some might think it’s ‘sick’ to be light-hearted at the expense of the war in Ukraine. However, if the Ukrainian army can play “Don’t worry, be happy” in front of military barricades to keep their spirits up, then I can engage my weird and not universally loved sense of humour as a morale (if not a moral) booster.
Traumatic as it is, the war in Ukraine appeared to have united Europe, and united Britain and Europe, apart from a few wobbles early on when the Germans seemed to care more about their gas supplies than the lives of innocents, this united front was going swimmingly. We all managed to put aside our differences so that the EU could do its thing and the UK could do its thing independently and free from EU shackles, thanks to Defence Secretary Ben Wallace. He has outshone Foreign Secretary Liz Truss just as Michael Gove outshone Home Secretary Priti Patel. Not the finest hour for the ladies, is it. (I can say that; the men can’t.)
Similarly, deaths aside, I enjoyed the pandemic. It pushed the wrangling over Brexit off the front pages – well, sometimes – we had the freedom and flexibility to push ahead with our far superior vaccination programme, hampered only by Macron’s Moaning and Von der Lier’s Venom, the Brexit-induced economic implosion never happened and we are / were bouncing back well from the Covid-induced economic hiccup, if you ignore Rishi’s daft hike in National Insurance to fund NHS bureaucracy (you don’t think it’s going to pay for front-line services, do you?) which was the most un-Tory, un-economically sound policy decision he could have taken.
There are still those who claim that all the ills that did befall us, e.g. the petrol shortage that never was, were the fault of Brexit and nothing to do with Covid or the alignment of Venus with Outer Mongolia, but some claim that if we hadn’t Brexited, we’d never have succumbed to the Black Death in the 14th century. They’re as daft as Rishi.
At least ‘they’ (I promised a mate I’d stop referring to Remainers as Remxxners even though they won’t stop moaning, but I’m genetically pre-disposed not to write Remxxners, so ‘they’ it is) couldn’t blame Putin on Brexit.
It appears that ‘they’ were biding their time and BoJo, bless him, handed them his head on a platter; he said at the Tory conference, “I know that it's the instinct of the people of this country, like the people of Ukraine, to choose freedom, every time. I can give you a couple of famous recent examples. When the British people voted for Brexit in such large, large numbers, I don't believe it was because they were remotely hostile to foreigners. It's because they wanted to be free to do things differently and for this country to be able to run itself.”
The other example he gave was Brits getting vaccinated against coronavirus because they "were fed up with being told what to do by people like me".
Well! The usual suspects kicked off: Michael Hapless Heseltine, Alistair Dodgy-Dossier Campbell, Ian Have-Your-Cake-And-Eat-It Blackford and Donald Tut-Tut Tusk. They had to trawl their Thesauri for hackneyed adjectives such as “repugnant”, “debasing” and “insane”.
As Sajid Javid commented, “I don't think in any way he [BoJo] was connecting the situations in Ukraine and the UK. Most normal [my emphasis] people listening wouldn't have drawn that conclusion.”
Correct. BoJo wasn’t comparing the EU to Putin (although … oh, never mind I’ll just get myself into trouble again); he was saying that while in the EU, Brits weren’t free to run their own country how they might like. That. Is. A. Fact. Their instinct was to pursue ‘freedom’. Only those looking for trouble, to be divisive, to CPR the Anti-Brexit-Bandwagon would choose to interpret his words much differently.
Some pointed out that Ukraine wants to join the EU, so how can BoJo square his comments with that? Easily. Ukraine wants to be free from Putin’s bullying to allow it to join the EU on terms yet to be confirmed. Brits wanted to be free to leave the (bullying to a lesser extent and in a different way) EU and escape terms Joe Public never signed up to.
MEP Nathalie Loiseau, a former French EU affairs minister and close political ally of Macron (this isn’t going to end well) said, “A majority of British people voted peacefully to exit the EU. Their democratic choice was respected.”
It was? Macron hisself? Gina Miller? The BBC? John Bercow? That snide woman with a spider on her boob? The NI Protocol? On what planet were they respectful of the democratic choice?
And just this morning, in my LinkedIn feed, someone shared the following they’d seen on giff-gaff (whatever that is):
“Let’s do something Putin will hate. Let’s re-join the EU. And if that means we have to have cheaper food and fuel; the right to live, work and retire in 31 other countries, higher environmental standards; and peace secured in Northern Ireland, then that’s the price I’m willing to pay.”
The giff-gaff woman is obviously not very bright. Putin would love us to re-join the EU – all those wasted resources and distractions from arming the Ukranians. Cheaper food? I’d rather pay our farmers a decent price for their far superior food – I like beef, not horsemeat. Cheaper fuel? From Russia? As I said, she’s obviously not very bright. The right to live elsewhere? My best friend (Brit) lives in Germany quite happily. Higher environmental standards? Ever been stuck in a traffic jam in Paris? Peace secured in Northern Ireland? Peace was just fine until the EU foisted the NI Protocol on us. Did I say this woman obviously isn’t very bright?
I have been accused of going off-topic while blogging – so hang on to your hats for this one. As well as writing this blog, at the same time I'm tuned into an all-day conference on the health of our waterways. An MP has just admitted to voting Remain, but credited Brexit for enabling us to pass legislation to improve the health of our waterways that would not have been possible if we were still in the EU.
Of course adequately cleaning up the waterways will take decades, so if Putin invades Blighty in the meantime, we can spray his troops with sewage-laden water from our rivers and coasts and poison them to death.
Oh what a lovely war indeed!
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