Brexit and politics

On BBC Newsnight (26-05-20) [1] a note from Danny Kruger, Conservative MP for Devizes, was read out. It said, with respect to Dominic Cummings: “Appreciate the inbox and press are horrific but the PM is signalling (as he did with the sacking of 21 MPs last year – which appalled some people in the parly party) that he’s serious. BJ and DC together are why we won the 2019 election and them together is the only way to GBD [Get Brexit Done], level up the regions, and fix Whitehall – the only things which will win us the next election too. An arguable minor infraction of lockdown is totally secondary to that. Also, No 10 won’t budge, so calling for DC to go is basically declaring no confidence in PM.” Mark these words. They lay bare the inexorable logic of a government determined to achieve Brexit, whatever it costs. Cummings, by his act of extraordinary arrogance, has forced an issue that was intended to remain firmly behind closed doors, into the full glare of public scrutiny. The sin...

Things seem very precarious. With Cummings and Johnson, the right-wing have a stranglehold over normal politics. What can we do? Perhaps The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui has something to tell us in these depressing times? It was written by Berthold Brecht in response to the rise of Hitler. He wanted audiences to understand the mechanics of dictatorship so that it could be opposed. Well, there is no direct equivalent of Arturo Ui in our government. Ui is a Chicago gangster and represents Hitler. Our prime minister is not of his kind, thankfully. He would be too cowardly to pick up a tommy gun and spray bullets around. Neither does he have the primitive shrewdness of Ui, as his handshakes with coronavirus patients testify. So, we are unlikely to be liquidated, wacked or fed to the fishes by him. The machine gun route to dictatorship can stay in the play. Ui though is an opportunist. Here we see a similarity. He did not plan every move from the beginning. He only needed to wait ...