If Brexit Was Bad – This Is Worse!

If Theresa May wanted to begin her prime ministership by giving the rest of the world a good laugh at the U.K.’s expense then she’s certainly succeeded.

One could have hoped that – following her predecessor’s debacle over Europe, which resulted in the country being jerked back fifty years based mostly on the antics and lies of a couple of buffoons who should never be allowed anywhere near a government bench, least of all a parliamentary position – she would begin with a firm approach and appoint to her cabinet only those of solid and reliable character.

Instead, she’s now appointed one of those previously mentioned buffoons to perhaps the most important position in British politics. The idea of Boris Johnson as British Foreign Secretary makes as much sense as putting Hermann Goering in charge of a Jewish old people’s home – (“Well, you really messed up last time, Hermann, let’s see if you can do better this time around.”).

Only a few days ago, while campaigning for the P.M.’s position, she disparaged Johnson’s negotiating skills, as reported in the The Independent:

Boris Johnson’s appointment to foreign secretary has come as a surprise to many – especially given what his new boss Theresa May thinks of his negotiating skills.

When launching her bid to become leader just two weeks ago, Ms May joked that her then potential rival’s deal making skills left a little to be desired.

She said: “Boris negotiated in Europe. I seem to remember last time he did a deal with the Germans, he came back with three nearly-new water cannon”.

She was referring to Mr Johnson’s controversial decision to buy three used water cannons from the German federal police as London Mayor last year for £218,205.

He claimed the money was well spent because it saved the city the £2.3m cost to order them new – but this did not impress Ms May who blocked their use by any English or Welsh police force as Home Secretary.”^[1]

The world’s press is having a field-day over the appointment, with many pointing out that Johnson will need to apologise to quite a few heads of state if he ever wants to do business with them:

It is just a few months since the blond Brexiteer-in-chief was criticised for describing US president Barack Obama as a “part-Kenyan” who harboured an “ancestral dislike” of Britain..

If Hilary Clinton takes over from Obama that meeting could prove tetchy too after Johnson previously described the democratic candidate as having “a steely blue stare, like a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital”.

Relations with Turkey are also going to prove difficult after Johnson won £1,000 in a competition run by the Spectator magazine for the ‘most offensive Erdogan poem’.

In his poem Johnson had described Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan having sex with a goat and called him a “w***erer”.

Large parts of the Middle East could be off limits too. Last November local officials called off a visit to Palestine on safety grounds after the then London mayor told an audience in Tel Aviv that a trade boycott of Israeli goods was “completely crazy”.

In 2008 he apologised for a Daily Telegraph column in which he described the Queen being greeted in Commonwealth countries by “flag-waving piccaninnies” – a derogatory term for black children… [and in] the same column mentioned then Prime Minister Tony Blair being greeted by “tribal warriors who will all break out in watermelon smiles” on an upcoming visit to the Congo.”^[2]

Add to this his ‘taking out’ of a 10-year-old Japanese boy while indulging in a game of street rugby in Tokyo, and upsetting the Chinese during the Beijing Olympics by stating table tennis had not been invented by them, but evolved from an English Victorian game called, “whiff-waff.”

If the writer was embarrassed to hold a British passport following the ‘Brexit’ fiasco, he now feels an almost overwhelming urge to rip it into little pieces and flush it down the toilet.

What is happening to British politics? Are the nation’s leaders simply determined to outdo the charade that passes for politics in America? If Trump becomes presibent (that was an unintentional typo, but so apt I think I’ll leave it!) and meets with Johnson, it’ll be the comedy duo of the century.

If there are aliens out in the cosmos somewhere watching our progress as a species they’ll record our 21st century as the moment we totally lost it, and began the inevitable process of a mass bending-over to the point we all disappear up our own backsides.

They’ll likely breathe a sigh of relief when it happens.

^{[1] “This is what Theresa May had to say about Boris Johnson only a few days ago” The Independent, July 14th 2016}

^{[2] “Prepare for war! Bonkers Boris has already peeved off half the world and he’s now our new Foreign Secretary” Daily Record, July 13th 2016.}