THE GUARDIAN:
Whether it’s the monarchy, the union or the BBC, today’s Tories are trampling on the values they once claimed to cherish
‘Vandalism became a Brexit habit – hardly surprising for a project dedicated to uprooting a tangle of connections.’ Photograph: Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock
Just because Boris Johnson approaches every issue thinking only of Boris Johnson does not mean we have to do the same. Even the crisis that now engulfs the prime minister, and sees his fate hang on Tory MPs’ reaction to a
Sue Gray report that could come next week, is not only about him. It’s tempting to see it that way – to look for the roots of the partygate scandal in Johnson’s arrogance, entitlement and narcissism – but it’s a double mistake.
As a matter of politics, it’s unwise because it would allow the
Conservatives to ditch Johnson, pick a successor and claim to be a new government exorcised of its demon, with no need for the electorate to turn to Labour. But it’s also wrong.
For Johnson may be a loner, but he did not act alone. That’s narrowly true, in the sense that there were plenty of others who knew about or attended those rule-breaking parties and plenty more who are covering for him now. Every Conservative MP who
defends Johnson, every activist or donor who does not demand his resignation, makes themselves complicit in the damage his actions have caused.
But it’s true in a deeper sense, too, in that the shaming events in Downing Street are a function of a Conservative party that is now something else. Despite the name, that organisation is no longer conservative in the way that was previously understood and in which it once took great pride.
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onathan Freedland | Friday, January 21, 2022
Despite being a once dyed-in-the-wool Conservative voter, I regret to have to say that the Conservative Party, as it now is, belongs to a bygone age. The Whigs before it also belonged to a bygone age and that party eventually became extinct.
This country certainly needs a pro-business party, but the Conservatives are not that party! The Conservatives are a party of the one percent, for the one percent. The population of this country is made up of 99% other people who do not belong to the one percent. They, too, need a break. They, too, can add significantly to the GDP of this once great country.
This Tory administration is in place with BoJo at the helm simply because a cabal at the top wanted to make a financial killing, believing that being in the European Union stopped them from realizing their ambitions, their dream.
As a result, we, the people, had to pay the heavy price of losing our rights as European citizens, with all that that entails. Why? Just to allow BoJo to obtain the keys of Number 10 (and the 1% to make its killing). And what a dog’s dinner the man is making of the job now that he has it!
Brexit will one day have to be reversed (and it will be). The electorate has been fooled: They haven’t been told the truth – they haven’t been informed of their losses.
Brexit must be reversed. Reversed in the name of prosperity; and reversed in the name of Britain’s’ long-term future. It is the only patriotic outcome for Britain and for Britons long-term.
BoJo! Eat your heart out! – © Mark
