The country is in a mess at present – only the most passionate Leave oriented folk will deny that; even most of them concede it. Everyone is looking to what happens next.
Some clues are given in what is possibly the most extraordinary newspaper article ever written by a major political figure in British history. Boris Johnson attempts to calm frayed nerves with his vision of what Brexit now means; it is one so ludicrous it would make Douglas Carswell laugh with incredulity.
Boris tells us that somehow we are going to have access to the single market while eliminating free movement of people; later on he says that British workers will still able to live and work in the EU, and that EU workers will have the right to do the same here. So we’ll keep free movement of people, then. Boris has advocated the Canadian model, the Swiss model and even the Turkish model regarding what Britain’s new relationship with the EU could look like. Apparently he’s now settled for the Narnia model.
Read the article for yourselves – it is extraordinarily vapid. It has the whiff of a man who has dug himself a deep hole, thought about climbing out of it for a moment, realised he was in too deep for that to be possible, and then decided he’d just keep digging in the hopes of coming out the other side of the Earth.
So the real question here is: what can be done to stop this man from doing considerably more damage to the country than he has already done? The answer, in the short term at least, could be in Dan Jarvis.
Corbyn’s time is almost at an end – unless he really digs in and destroys the Labour Party, which is always a distinct possibility. Either way, someone new will be leading the opposition to Boris and the new Tory fold. I worry that we might end up in a situation we were in a year ago, when many rising Labour talents thought it was too early and figured they stood a much better chance of becoming prime minister if they let someone else be the caretaker for now. As the last year should have proven, such thinking leads to massive problems. We are in crisis and need someone to step up. I think it should be Dan.
With his military record, his patriotism cannot be challenged, least of all by a buffoon who has spent his whole time in public life treating it all as one big joke. He would bring the talent that has departed the Labour Party back into the fold at its most needed hour. I may be indulging in wishful thinking worthy of Boris here, but I actually think Dan Jarvis could win the general election if everything fell right for him. At the very least, it would be close and progressives would have some hope.
I have no idea if he’ll do it. But I think if he does decide to put himself forth as the alternative leader of the country, we could have some cause for hope.
Jeremy Corbyn was never my choice for leader, he reminds me of Ken Livingstone,Jeremy got in by a influx of students suddenly joining the party, basically, for a laugh. He had ruined us long before the referendum.
Jeremy will not resign. He will drag the party down before he concedes defeat. He is to arrogant, he believes the student hype who helped to elect him.
Dan Jarvis wouldn’t take on the role of Labour leader, unfortunately.
I agree, he would be good, he would appease the Leavers side of the party as he is ex army, so fits in with the “take our country back” brigade, but wouldn’t fit in with the far left of the party Because he was ex army, it’s a conundrum.
Chuka Umunna could have worked, but would alienate the hard core North, by north, I mean anywhere north of London.
Just please don’t let it be Diane Abbott, I would then have to become a Green party voter
i agree with Boris comments, i have known him for 20 years, and it is just the ways he processes. As for Labour, i do not think anyone has the capacity to make sense of the Party’s mess, we have to go back to Brown to locate the point at which the well was actually poisoned in terms of credible leadership, they could have redeemed themselves but opted for the wrong brother, maybe they is a chance for them to put that expensive mistake right…..We’ll see
Someone needs to tell any Labour “Inners” currently terribly upset by the idea of an ‘undemocratic coup’ to unseat JC that a credible leader on a Remain platform could conceivably (admittedly with some clever engineering) produce a Lab + Lib + Green alignment. For a GE to be a mechanism for an exit from Brexit it needs two very crystal clear alternatives. Split Lab vs split Con vs uncle tom cobbley and all won’t be that. Tory/UKIP (leave + ultra leave) vs Lab/Lib etc (remain/regrexit) might do the trick.
Boris drivel in the Telegraph reveals what we already knew. Not really an outer. As you rightly point out he’s digging. In a dark irony he appears to have assumed the title role of the Scottish play. Killed the king but carry on and hope no-one notices. All of that has to effect Leave calculations on the Tory right? So it is to be hoped that Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane fairly soon.
Relegation to some glorified EEA status a la Norway would be worse of all worlds assuming that were to be the EU’s endgame plan. Hilariously, it would involve a kind of reverse colonization by Ireland as we’d be beholden to the Irish (and/or the Dutch, the Swedes, the Danes) in terms of exercising any influence whatsoever in EU decisionmaking.