Dark Days: Boris Johnson and the Supreme Court

(Picture Credit: The Financial Times)

This morning, Lady Hale read out the judgment of the Supreme Court, that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s advice to the Queen that Parliament should be prorogued was unlawful. While I’m sure that many folks on the liberal and left were bouncing with delight and glee, later, as I sat in the café hearing Jeremy Corbyn, the Great White Hope, attaching himself to yet another seemingly populist cause of dissent, calling out, to rapturous applause, that the Prime Minister should resign, I could not see it as anything but another chapter in an ongoing calamity. As a perennially contrarian antagonist and agitator, I’m the last person to vote in favour of the maintenance of the status quo, but I couldn’t help thinking of the dark days ahead.

The decision of the Prime Minister to prorogue Parliament in the midst of the Brexit fiasco was questionable to say the least. At a time when we are approaching major upheaval as regards the future of the United Kingdom in the international sphere, to not have our elected representatives out there doing their best to secure a deal and create the foundations for a viable future is very foolish. Indeed, the case is particularly complicated over here in Northern Ireland. When we should be looking for viable solutions to the Irish border problem, Arlene Foster, the leader of our backwards ruling party the DUP, seems to be more content to pull the wool over our eyes with an illusion all wrapped up in symbolism, discussing with the Prime Minister a proposed bridge between Ardoyne and Scotland which, let’s face it, if this most ridiculous plan does come to fruition, will probably end up like The Bridge On The River Kwai, either by way of dastardly Republicans or the unexploded World War II torpedoes in the Irish Sea. Like that of President Herr Trump’s Great Wall Of Mexico, this grand image is, in essence, highfalutin hullabaloo, nonexistent vapour designed to distract from the issues at hand.

Still, despite my opposition to the parasites and crooks that primarily constitute, stinking up hallowed halls as their greasy sweat sticks to the leathered seats they so lazily stretch and sprawl themselves across while discussing the fate of the peons, I cannot jubilate in this decision. Some will celebrate it as an example of democracy coming through, as our politicians will sit once again on Wednesday, but I cannot. Our democracy has long since been sabotaged. Any semblance of the concept or the idea, the fundamentals behind what the word ‘democracy’ means are lies and the bedrock, source of manipulation from which these charlatans function, use as their base of operations. It will be business as usual as they continue doing nothing to institute change, real, positive change for the betterment of our nation’s inhabitants.

As the old man grumbled in the café while I listened to Corbyn’s declaration in my left ear over the loudspeakers on the radio, “I’ve never heard the likes of it,” I was uncertain as to where he lay, but I knew that whatever way it was a negative statement.

If Prime Minister Boris Johnson does or is forced to resign he will be adopted by the increasingly prominent extreme-right. As we have seen in the case of fringe figures such as Jayda Fransen and Tommy Robinson, everybody loves a martyr, and playing victim to the press in the name of ‘freedom of speech,’ perhaps accompanied by a picture with duck tape over their mouths, it serves to increase discontent. Instead of being a case of democracy, justice being served, these individuals, with their twisted, perverted logic will force themselves to see only what they want to see, that Boris Johnson was screwed out of doing right by the British people. Thankfully though, the plus side of this current brand of the far-right is they are a fairly jumbled bunch who create scenes, mere acts of provocation rather than anything lacking in legitimate meaning. The most dangerous thing about fascism is that it has a philosophy, and this lot are much too lacking in intelligence to be able to capitalise on that base, core simplicity, overloading their senses and sending their brains akimbo by behaving like a bunch of boors and louts. They couldn’t organise the proverbial piss-up in a brewery, much less an armed militia.

The left seem, on the surface, to have been doing a better job of it. Jeremy Corbyn has slowly been building himself into the figurehead they so desperately want, and a number of different organisations operate on a grassroots level, working diligently and patiently to win over supporters. However, I still can’t help but feel that, like Sinn Fein over here, the Labour Party across the water has too many dirty little secrets, the only difference being that while the Tories are playing out their dramas in public, Labour are keeping things close to the bone, inhouse, closed doors, or rather under several gag orders. The presentation they want everyone to see is that of a strong, unified front, but I suspect that behind the scenes there is something nasty and wicked lurking. Furthermore, the mass movements concern themselves more in creating a festival atmosphere of drinking and partying than any legitimate shock to the system, a glowing smiley-face emoji in place of the face of anger, not forgetting to get their sweeping wide-shots all over social media. Such is the nature of 21^st century protest.

Not everyone gets into politics on the basis of ulterior motives, but over time, unfortunately, most of these people lose sight of what brought them to the dance. They compromise their visions, let themselves go, fall in line with everyone else. Raising their feet in a ninety-degree arc, swinging arms together as they march like party animals, all original thoughts thrown to the wayside, lying dead in a ditch as a passing car splashes dirty mud water from a puddle on their carcass.

“He loved Big Brother.”

We stand on the precipice of a period of great uncertainty, and nobody has a clue what to do.

And yet, there is still hope. When I see people like Greta Thunberg, the courageous sixteen-year old activist who is travelling the world to enlighten people on the risks of climate change, I am inspired. It says something about the state of things when it takes someone like this to stand up fearlessly in front of The Big People and give them what for, take no prisoners and aim for the gullet. I bought a collection of her speeches, No One Is To Small To Make A Difference, earlier this year, and I’d urge everyone to pick up a copy. It’s inner-eye/mind-opening stuff. Of course, I worry. Already, the truth hurts too much for some. I have seen the writing on the wall in the rhetoric adopted by those who attack Thunberg. I don’t even like saying it, lest the suggestion has some sort of trickle affect along the psychic bond  shared among all individuals, but the state is crazy and messed up enough as it is that I would not be surprised is someone attempted to assassinate her, and all because she has the guts to say what needs to said, has the will to address what we refuse to admit. People might say, “oh, no, nobody would stoop so low,” but as history proves, our capacity to willingly commit such acts knows no bounds.

I hate to be the doomsayer, to have such a borderline apocalyptic worldview. I see it in my dreams when I sleep, the film pulled back revealing things to me, but for years we have been coming towards the edge. We are on the peak of history. On every single day that passes we are effecting change. The plural duality, aspect of humankind, we’re split one of two ways, either to save the race, fighting against the death-wish, the sex-death instinct, compulsive love of self-destruction, or going with it, wittingly or otherwise, letting ourselves plunge into the abyss.

Bubbles rise to the surface of the water as the kettle boils, brewing. The tension builds. We could be fighting in the streets, descend into chaos when what we is need order and stability. I worry, I fear for the future of our world, not my own.

But that is one possible future.

At risk of sounding like I’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid, humanity has a strange and wonderful knack of surviving. In my heightened states of mind I imagine all possibilities operating on respective planes simultaneously, and yet the one I gravitate towards sees us transcending, crossing over, break on through to the other side.

Although we may have dark days ahead, I have no doubt that we will pass this crisis, walk forward, moving, in our way, learning, understanding, to live long, love our world and one another.