Why was it left to Bonnie to say?

SIR –  IT took Bonnie Greer, an American author and journalist, a matter of minutes to spell it out to a British audience on BBC’s Question Time, what Britain expected from Ireland over Brexit. 

Absolutely nothing, she said. ‘Often, I hear people talk about Ireland as if this country owns Ireland. Ireland owes this country no concessions, it owes it no quarter, it owes it nothing.’

The UK cannot shaft Ireland she said, in the easiest to understand English possible, leaving no room for misunderstanding. Wouldn’t it be the icing on the cake if Simon Coveney or the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar had said those words first, instead of leaving it to a woman of African-American extraction to spell it out for them?

As most of us has been aware, Boris has been proroguing his way through the remnants of what remains of a supposedly functioning British government like a runaway steamroller.

Having told porkies in front of Lizzie Windsor to get her to suspend parliament, he has ignored accusations of law-breaking and criticism from within and outside his own Conservative party since judges ruled that his proroguing was unlawful.

Then, in his latest move, he issued a seven-page document that is supposed to pose as an alternative to the ‘cúlstad’ (backstop). 

It’s a phoney plan that undoubtedly brought tears of exasperation to European Council president Donald Tusk and European commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, never mind the yawn-induced nights he’s giving to an Taoiseach Leo Varadkar with his dumb-assed proposals. 

We are aware, as Mary Lou McDonald, has stressed many times, that Britain is experiencing a constitutional earthquake, all of their own making. 

Unfortunately, I have heard people in this country who do not have much of a grip on politics, say that Theresa May had been doing her best against the bullies in Brussels before she got her p45, which she probably was, but only to protect selfish British interests, and Ireland was only a side issue not to be too concerned about. 

Now Boris the Westminster bully is carrying the same inward-looking torch, but in a more vocal and provocative way. 

Sit down with your large sized bag of Doritos, and honey-flavoured peanuts to watch the remake of the movie, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, as the latest chapter unveils itself to an exasperated public, in a new ongoing series filmed in the old Etonian basket of British democracy, Westminster parliament. 

Boris will be starring in the role of Randle McMurphy, who pleads insanity because he habitually keeps attempting to circumvent the law.

It is high time that we Irish, who have been the butt of their ‘Paddy the Irishman’ jokes since their colonial jaunts took them across the Irish sea, should take a smidgen of enjoyment out of their self-inflicted discomfort. After all, to paraphrase Bonnie Greer’s words, we owe them absolutely nothing over Brexit, but they owe us a lot. 

James Woods

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