History in the making as we see our first Boris Budget!

World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com

Whatever way this week’s budget went, it had already guaranteed its place in Irish political history – as the first Budget shaped by Boris Johnson. Every so often a larger-than-life figure emerge in political life that is distinctive because he or she tends to dominate discourse.

For some they are magnetic. For others they are repellent. For many, they can be both, or variously, attractive and repellent.

If Boris wasn’t Boris, his political career would be long over by now. He is a habitual liar, has had a string of affairs, and is as trustworthy as a snake oil salesman, living his silver-spooned life in a privileged bubble.

But something about him gives him a huge appeal to what pollsters like calling the ‘base’. That’s diehard Tories and diehard Brexiteers.

And most of them are on the opposite side of the social spectrum – working class, unemployed, undereducated.

Boris Johnson is the leader of his party, principally because his MPs believe he represents their best chance of winning the next election. It’s certainly not on his track record, or on his performance levels.

Since becoming prime minister he has stumbled and reeled from one blunder to another.

His prorogation of parliament backfired spectacularly. He had his comeuppance on that when the English Supreme Court ruled it was not lawful. His plan (or non-plans) on Brexit invited ridicule because for all his claims that he was working tirelessly on a deal, Brussels was reporting there were no active or meaningful negotiations taking place.

And then when he finally came up with a proposal it was for Northern Ireland to be taken out of the EU customs union but to stay in the single market for four years.

The Northern institutions would then have a say in deciding if that single-market status would remain after four years. But, given that any party can veto change in the North, that would have allowed the DUP to veto any continuance of the North staying in the single market.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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