Yahoo Finance Losing all hope that the union can survive Boris Johnson
The union is not in peril (Union in peril as PM ‘speaks for England alone’, former civil servant warns, 12 April). It is a political Norwegian Blue parrot, nailed to its perch but clearly, to any rational observer, an ex-union. Hitler and Napoleon failed, but Boris Johnson will go down in history as the man who destroyed the UK. Tony Blair and John Major warned that a mismanaged Brexit would prove disastrous to the Good Friday agreement. Johnson and his supporters went for an extreme form of Brexit, deciding to leave the EU customs union and single market, from which the present Northern Ireland disaster directly, predictably and inevitably followed. The chances are high that a referendum will result in a vote for Irish reunification within the lifetime of this parliament.
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In Scotland, there is not a single politician who can credibly make a case for the union. Belatedly, politicians are talking about new constitutional arrangements to accommodate Scottish aspirations. After the breaching of international and UK law by this government, the most blatantly corrupt, callous and incompetent one for more than 100 years, no one in Scotland, or anywhere else for that matter, is going to trust anything Johnson says. He has brilliantly made the case that there is no alternative to Scottish independence.
John Cookson
Bournemouth, Dorset
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• The Conservative and Unionist party should be renamed – perhaps retaining “Con” in its title to reflect the lies that have enabled the government to avoid the simple truth that a hard Brexit would threaten the union by angering one or other community in Northern Ireland, depending on where the border with the EU fell. No wonder Boris Johnson is “deeply concerned” (Report, 8 April), as he created this situation.
Given his track record on double dealing, the plan must be to ignore the border in the Irish Sea and manoeuvre the EU into choosing between re-establishing a land border and taking the blame for all the possible consequences of that, or allowing a flood of unregulated UK products into the EU via Ireland. This would, of course, put an end to any remaining faith in the word of this government.
Adrian Cosker
Hitchin, Hertfordshire
• One characteristic of failing states is the hoarding of power by the central government, fearful of ceding it to any group that threatens it. Boris Johnson, having emasculated any opposition in Westminster, expelling refuseniks from the party and marginalising parliament, is not going to share that carefully accumulated power with the devolved governments that don’t share his agenda.
Northern Ireland will be the template for how the government treats future regional problems. It will increasingly retreat to its Westminster bunker, refusing to engage with any issue that threatens the legitimacy of its rule, instead relying on a media PR campaign to paint a picture that is at odds with reality. The problem is not one of English nationalism, but a prime minister with dangerously authoritarian instincts.
Derrick Joad
Leeds
• Re the claim that Boris Johnson only speaks for England, I must disagree – he only speaks for some of England. I am English, and he certainly does not speak for me, or for most of my friends.
Pete Dorey
Bath, Somerset
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