Socio-Political Commentator – Dickson Igwe
Boris Johnson’s appointment as UK Prime Minister is simply a new phase of the Brexit Civil War
Boris Johnson officially became UK Prime Minister on July 25, 2019. His appointment was no surprise. Johnson is a darling of the UK Far Right. Much as Donald Trump is the Poster Boy of the USA’s White Supremacists and Far Right Wing Types.
Both men possess swagger and bluster. Both men are filled with the ” proverbial bull,” something especially attractive to the mob mentality of unthinking and angry working class and blue collar types.
In the USA, Donald Trump – owing to the USA’s political nature- is being lifted towards a Second Term by a hyper-partisan politics that has deeply divided the USA along racial and ideological lines.
Similarly, in the UK, Boris Johnson is the bogeyman of the Far Right. Johnson has engineered the take over of the UK Conservative Party- a center right organization- by far right wing types, and Brexiters.
Johnson believes that his charisma and passion will win him a General Election against Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn, and the UK’s Labour Party, even if polls indicate otherwise.
In any event Trump’s Pitch Fork Revolution is far more potent than Boris Johnson’s Brexiter Movement. Why: because the UK and the USA are two very different countries and societies this mid 2019.
PM Boris Johnson. Photo courtesy https://www.express.co.uk
The USA remains a superpower with overwhelming military might. The UK is today very much a declining power with it’s attachment to Europe a key part of it’s world power matrix.
Most Britons are intelligent enough to understand this reality. The other 45% remain enamored in a surreal world where Britain remains a power in the mould of the Britain of the 1950s and 60s – a Britain at the sunset of Empire.
Europeans possess a much more realistic view of their place in the world.
Individually, European countries understand that they carry much less clout, than when the 27 countries – a market of over 500 million middle class consumers- stand together as a single political and economic entity on the world stage.
Brexiters have failed to understand this reality. So Brexiters carry on with a march to nowhere based on nostalgia for a Britain that no longer exists.
Thankfully 55% of Britons understand this reality. And that is Boris Johnson’s and his band of Brexiters’ biggest problem. They will not take the rest of Britain with them over the social and economic precipice no matter ”how posh the queen’s English.”
So, the biggest test is yet to come for Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Johnson will attempt a ”crash out” of Europe before Halloween: a No Deal Brexit.” It is doubtful a majority of UK lawmakers see that as acceptable.
So Johnson intends to stage a coup, termed the prorogue of Parliament, to force a No Deal Brexit. This will simply plunge the UK into economic and political crisis.
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Dickson Igwe is an education official in the Virgin Islands. He is also a national sea safety instructor. He writes a national column across media and has authored a story book on the Caribbean: 'The Adventures of a West Indian Villager'. Dickson is focused on economics articles, and he believes economics holds the answer to the full economic and social development of the Caribbean. He is of both West African and Caribbean heritage. Dickson is married with one son.
