Boundless Mendacity

Andrew Rawnsley asks, "What kind of Tory government jeopardises the union and tears up the rules of law?"

For people who present themselves as super-patriots, Boris Johnson and his coterie at Number 10 have a craze for despoiling everything that the world once regarded as the best of British. The independence of the judiciary, the success of the BBC, the impartiality of the civil service and the authority of parliament - all have been bricked and bottled by the blue anarchists. When the Tory leader tried his prorogation stunt last autumn, he was even prepared to taint the position of the Queen by giving her illegal advice. Now their delinquency has escalated to explicitly tearing up the rule of law. That foundation stone of British democracy and lodestar of our country’s international reputation, the principle that once had no more passionate champion than the Conservative party, is no longer safe from them.

We live in a world that has been turned upside down. Nowhere is this truer than in Britain:

It was an extraordinary moment when a member of the cabinet stood before parliament to declare that the government plans to intentionally break international law by unilaterally rewriting sections of the withdrawal agreement with the EU. Number 10 then confirmed that Mr Johnson was ready to violate a treaty that he negotiated less than a year ago, made the centrepiece of his pitch to the British people at the election last December, and then had the Commons rapidly ratify in January. The agreement he once flourished as a “wonderful” triumph for his personal diplomacy is now described by Number 10 as a rushed botch that the prime minister never liked. Breaching of a treaty that he himself signed and advocated sets a fresh standard of brazenness.

BoJo believes he can break treaties at will -- even the ones he has just negotiated. But the damage he has done to Britain's international reputation is horrific:

Theresa May and Sir John Major are among the senior Tories shocked to find that an allegedly Conservative government wants to turn Britain into a treaty-breaking renegade state. Sir John warns: “If we lose our reputation for honouring the promises we make, we will have lost something without price.” Grave reprimands from two of his predecessors would have troubled previous prime ministers, but not this one. My word is my bond is not a motto by which Boris Johnson has ever lived his life.

No one has excoriated him as fiercely as Michael Howard, a veteran Eurosceptic. That former Tory leader makes the excellent point that the “severe damage” done to Britain’s moral authority will make it harder to criticise international law-breaking by the likes of China, Russia and Iran. Norman Lamont, the former Tory chancellor and one of the first prophets of Brexit, weighed in to say that the government had got itself into a “terrible mess”. Even the zealots at Number 10 may have a tremor of self-doubt when they are losing Tory elders as Brexity as Lords Howard and Lamont.

Brexit was always going to be difficult -- not a "piece of cake" as its boosters predicted:

The trigger for this simultaneous descent towards rogue nation status and lurch to the brink of a crash-out Brexit was the deadlock in the talks with the EU. It is no surprise that they have proved much more difficult than the Brexiters sought to pretend during the referendum campaign, when the negotiation was going be a “piece of cake”, and again in the run up to the December election, when Mr Johnson promised that his “oven-ready deal” would secure “a fantastic new trade agreement with the EU”. As some of us remarked at the time, “Get Brexit Done” was both the most effective slogan of the Tories’ election campaign and the most mendacious.

Mendacious is the right word. We seem to be cursed by a class of world leaders whose mendacity knows no bounds.

Image:Esquire