The promises Boris Johnson will break in the New Year
By: Katy Preen
Tags: Boris Johnson, Coronavirus, Brexit, Uk News, Covid 19

The promises Boris Johnson will break in the New Year

New Year is a time for resolutions and hopes for the coming 12 months. Although most of us break our promises to ourselves at some point, our Prime Minister has made a lot of significant promises to the British people about our new start as a non-EU member state, which begins on 1st January.

Following on from Monday’s press conference, where we unpacked the lies told by our esteemed leader, let’s look at the bold claims he made that are sure to fail. Like everything Johnson touches, these good intentions are gonna backfire, I just know it. Some of these pre-date Monday’s speech (oven-ready deal, anyone?), but they’re all things meant to come to fruition in 2021.

Brexit

It’s the obvious one, isn’t it? At Monday’s press conference, the PM was asked if a deal was in sight. He smirked and joked with the transport secretary who was at the podium with him, and then responded thus:

“I’m just going to repeat what I think you’ve heard me say many times. I had a great conversation, by the way, with Emmanuel, as I’ve said, it’s his birthday by the way, but we vowed to stick off Brexit, because that negotiation is being conducted, as you know, via the European Commission, and that’s quite proper, and the position is unchanged. There are problems, it’s vital that everybody understands that the UK has got to be able to control its own laws completely, and also that we’ve got to be able to control our own fisheries. And it remains the case that WTO terms would be more than satisfactory for the UK. And we can certainly cope with any difficulties that are thrown our way. Not that we don’t want a deal, but that WTO terms would be entirely satisfactory. And ‘prosper mightily’ remains an extremely good description of life after January 1st either way.”

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM, that strongly suggests to me that we are going to be on our own after 1st January, and it’s not going to be “entirely satisfactory”, nor will we “prosper mightily”. God, he was laughing the whole way through that answer. Everything the ‘Remoaners’ said would happen is going to happen. Shit.

Back to normal by Easter

“Now that we’ve got the vaccine coming in the way that we have, I think that we can certainly look forward to a very, very different world for this country from Easter onwards, as I think Chris [Chief Medical Officer] and Patrick [Chief Scientific Officer] have said before. And it’s very, very important for, not just for people’s morale, but it’s also totally realistic that we have every reason to be extremely hopeful about this country’s ability to bounce back next year from Covid. And I think that is the right thing to say then and now.”

I’m old enough to remember when Johnson said we would “turn the tide in 12 weeks” at the start of the disease’s arrival in the UK. So, how’s that going, eh? Some are predicting another lockdown by the weekend (is that the third or fourth?), hospitals all over the country are almost at capacity, and our daily deaths are back at March/April levels. If we are to be “back to normal by Easter” we need to sort our public health response out properly. We’ve had 10 months to do it so far, and we’ve still not got it right. We’ll be lucky to have a normal Christmas in 2021 at this rate.

Schools back in January

Johnson was also asked about schools — to which he replied that we’d like to get pupils back in January, but he was at least a bit more cautious on this one, saying that we’d have to base it on the spread of the disease rather than just making a wild promise on the spot. Still, it ain’t happening. Kids have just gone home for Christmas, many of them carrying the new strain that seems to spread more readily among children, mingling with their families and developing symptoms at some point around the start of term. I doubt if adults will be going into their offices, let alone sending kids to school. And I reckon there would be a big enough rebellion if the government tried to make them go back.

There is more to come…

We need to get more coronavirus testing in the community, and we need to deliver the vaccine (both doses) to the whole population. At present there are issues with supply of the vaccine and availability of tests (like there has been for 10 months, for fuck’s sake) but it doesn’t look like a total disaster yet.

We will “Get Brexit Done” on 1st January one way or another, but that doesn’t mean we’ll do it well. There are going to be consequences for many years on the economy, jobs, availability of goods, prices, travel arrangements, opportunities for young people, on science, medicine and education, funding for local projects, Britain’s international standing, and much more. The benefits of EU membership are woven in to every aspect of our lives. And although the UK left the EU in name almost a year ago, the impact on most people’s lives has been imperceptible. That’s all going to change in 9 days.

I expect there to be an array of excuses for any failings, along the lines of blaming the public for a spike in infections, and blaming Brussels for everything else. Oh, and the assertion that ‘we knew what we were voting for’.

I suspect that Boris Johnson will not remain as Prime Minister for long. He will “Get Brexit Done” and then scarper, leaving someone else to clean up the mess. But who? Although Johnson is awful, so are the rest of the potential candidates. We could have four more years of this government, and they can fit a lot of disappointment into that timeframe.