Boris Johnson: I do not believe this Moses can part the #Brexit Red Sea

The man – Boris Johnson

By the force of sheer ambition and ingrained public-school entitlement, Boris Johnson is on the cusp of becoming the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. He must be congratulated for this achievement, but it is at an inauspicious time.

Boris Johnson has both a record and form, his history is littered with gaffes and buffoonery, the tack of playing the court jester whilst executing the dastardly, he does not have the best references from many of those he worked for, but we are where we are now.

I was distressed but not full of despair when it was announced that he had been elected the leader of the Tory Party, the position was his to lose, for he does offer some sort of star power and to those easily distracted, you could be fooled for how Machiavellian he could be.

We need more than hope

Listening to his victory speech yesterday, I could notice no hint of sincerity in what he said apart from fulfilling the righteousness of seemingly saying the right things. We are as a country and conglomerate of nations facing crossroads of what future is ahead of us, we all, knowing how this country has stagnated since the Brexit vote of June 2016.

We all need a dose of optimism, but it cannot be realised by ignoring the stark realities this all portends. I would be the first to tell you that when I finally accepted I had cancer, just under 10 years ago, I knew I would survive it, but I still had to face the reality ahead of me, I didn’t even know that treatment I would get would work.

It was 5 gruelling months of chemotherapy, 4 types of pain medication, enough to quieten the pain, yet with that little bit of pain that proved I was still alive. Optimism and hope alone was not enough, as my consultant said to me if I did not respond well to the treatment, I had just 5 weeks to live.

What kind of Moses is he?

For all the optimism and hope that Boris Johnson suggests we need to get Brexit realised, there are some tough obstacles ahead about negotiating deals and assuring a future for this country and its people. We cannot just proceed on jingoism, bluster, rhetoric and gallons of intoxicating hope towards the sunlit uplands that are figments of an inebriated and overactive vivid imagination, there are jobs at risk, lives in the balance, futures in turmoil and other unintended consequences.

Leadership in the case of Brexit would be like us being brought like the Israelites of old to The Red Sea, the question is if indeed, the one who has brought thus far is the Moses with the rod to part the Red Sea or a charlatan about to drown the nation having convinced us we can swim like dolphins to the other side.

“The UK is at its most combustible. And now it’s led by a man who plays with matches.” Aditya Chakrabortty in the Guardian today. [Guardian]

We will continue to oppose Brexit

I earnestly believe Brexit is not the right path for the UK at this time. Nations use the heft of bloc, trading, political, military and economic to exact deals and this has been the case for decades already. A good example is us calling on Europe to help police the Gulf shipping when the US apparently refused to help us out. Ireland has the heft of the EU-27 behind it and so commands much more clout in the EU negotiations than the UK can alone.

I will put my support behind parties that support revoking Article 50, we would not be a silent minority in terms of where our nation is going. We belong here and we patriotic, and if patriotism needs to be redefined, it is the love of the fatherland, it does not automatically include the love of the government, their agenda or policies, we all need to be persuaded and convinced and if we are not, we are no less citizens and have no less a say in how we are governed.

In the end, I can only wish Boris Johnson a successful premiership, he will be opposed for as long as we can muster the support to do so if we believe he is taking us for a ride. There is a time to know when a course leads to perdition and someone should take that decision to turn back from ruin.