Great piece by James Kirkup: The lies and liars of Brexit
(he's been excellent on TRAs & self-ID too, one of my go-to writers)
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/12/the-lies-and-liars-of-brexit/amp/?twitterr_impression=true
I’ve written about more ministerial resignations, scandals, failures of public policy and abdications of leadership than I can remember.
None of those failures has ever left me quite as bewildered and despairing as I am today,
pondering the latest act in the national farce that is Brexit. Bewildered, despairing and surprisingly angry.
Surprisingly because I don’t often get angry with politicians
...
But while we all make mistakes, all sometimes lack a little courage, I find it hard to forgive lying.
Especially deliberate, persistent and – most of all – consequential lying.
And that is really what the Brexit mess is all about: lying.
Pretty much everyone involved in this whole sorry mess is lying about something, and sometimes about more than one thing.
...
No one wants to tell the 52 per cent the truth that they voted for bad choices;
no one wants to tell the 48 per cent that means we have to pick one of those bad choices.
The result is that the least bad option can’t go forward because too many people still believe there’s something better on offer.
...
And the country, this country that could once claim to set the standard for political stability and solid common sense, is ruddlerless and bereft of leadership.
Because so many politicians, the politicians I’ve spent my adult life talking to, writing about and often defending, have failed in their first responsibility:
to tell people the truth.
And that is where this column ends, because I have no idea of what follows on from that failure.