So she has had to buy votes from one of the most right-wing, racist, homophobic, sexist, Islamophobic, sectarian and backwards parties in all of the UK. What can one say about the DUP? They are a freak circus of inarticulate, antediluvian bigots who exist in the stone ages. The DUP have a long history of close links and associations with the Protestant colonist terrorist «loyalists» of Northern Ireland. The loyalist terrorists started the conflict in Northern Ireland not the IRA. It was the virulently anti-Catholic sectarian DUP and their allies in the loyalist terrorist groups such as the UVF, UFF and UDA who waged a vicious campaign of violence, civil disobedience and discrimination against the Roman Catholic, Irish nationalist minority in Northern Ireland from the early 1960s onwards in much the same way white supremacists in the United States fought against the Civil Rights Movement led by Martin Luther King. 

The DUP under their abominable Cult leader, the maniac «Reverend» Ian Paisley, opposed every single initiative and proposal to bring peace between the warring communities of Northern Ireland up until 2007 when Ian Paisley was able to become First Minister. Paisley's road to Damascus was about forty years in the making and because of him and his politics of bigotry/fear and his methods of whipping up the uneducated Protestant loyalist masses, quite a lot of innocent people lost their lives during that period. The members of the DUP are quite a motley crew. We have the former DUP Leader and First Minster Peter Robinson and his wife Iris. Mrs. Robinson had to resign her seat in disgrace from the House of Commons and her membership of the DUP was terminated when it came to light she had an extramarital affair with a 19-year-old in 2008 and she and her husband were faced with allegations of financial impropriety related to the affair. 

The Robinsons were also major culprits in the 2009 Parliamentary expenses scandal. Mr. Robinson has had a long history of being involved with loyalist terrorists and was involved in a financial scandal of his own while stating that he: »wouldn't trust Muslims devoted to Sharia Law, but I would trust them to go down to the shops for me». Another DUP MP a Mr. Sammy Wilson has been embroiled in a racist scandal of his own. Ironically for the DUP which is militantly anti-gay quite a few of their members are repressed homosexuals. Then we have their current leader a Ms. Arlene Foster who gave away half a billion pounds in public money to her cronies in the infamous «Cash for Ash» scandal. If this had happened in China, Ms. Foster would be in jail, not handed a further 1 Billion Pounds of public money by Theresa May to waste, as she wasted the last Half a Billion Pounds.

These are Mrs. May's new British Government partners, her «strong friends» in the DUP, whom she has said share «many values» with her own Tory Party. The price for propping up and keeping in power the shameful, arrogant, lightweight Theresa May has been 1 Billion Pounds in taxpayers money (mainly English taxpayers money). Mrs. May has in effect bought votes in the House of Commons. During her appalling General Election campaign Mrs. May repeatedly said there was no «magic money tree» to end austerity for the police, nurses, doctors, teachers, ambulance drivers, social services and other critical public service workers. Yet, very conveniently, she has found a «magic money tree» to give the DUP a further 1 Billion Pounds to waste as they wasted almost Half a Billion Pounds in the «Cash for Ash» scandal. This woman May is pathetic and must go! There are many factors regarding the Tory-DUP deal which have severe implications nationally and internationally: 

1.) By once again putting short-term political expediency above the national and international interest Theresa May is risking peace and stability in Northern Ireland. It took a lot of hard, commendable, noble work from the Conservative Prime Minister John Major and the Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair to bring to an end the violence and mayhem of Northern Ireland's conflict. The superb John Major and equally brilliant Jonathan Powell have rightly pointed out that Mrs. May risks undoing all that painstakingly difficult work by aligning herself and her minority Tory Government with one party in the factional tribalism of the sectarian dysfunction that is Northern Ireland politics. The devolved consociational Stormont administration brought about by the Good Friday Agreement which governs at a provincial level in Belfast is still not up and running after six months in the abyss due to Foster's arrogance (similar to Theresa May) and her wasting of Half a Billion Pounds. 

2.) By aligning herself with such a reactionary and toxic party Mrs. May also risks undoing the work of David Cameron in detoxifying the Conservative Party brand and making it more acceptable to a more socially liberal and progressive population in England. 

3.) By buying off votes in the House of Commons Mrs. May risks further inflaming social tensions between the constituent members of the UK and aggravating tensions within Britain's Muslim community due to the DUP's long track record of Islamophobia. Already the Welsh and Scottish administrations are asking if 1 Billion Pounds can be found for Northern Ireland what about Wales and Scotland? What about ending austerity in England? Mrs. May's «cheap talk» as John Major correctly put it will be seen for just that. May repeatedly said during the General Election money could not be found for ending austerity in England, yet magically, she has found the money to end austerity in Northern Ireland. 

4.) The Tory-DUP deal will have ramifications for what kind of Brexit is finally negotiated. The DUP are virulently anti-EU and want the hardest possible Brexit minus a hard border between Northern and Southern Ireland. As Mrs. May is now heavily dependent on their number for votes on Brexit legislation this will have real implications for Britain's withdrawal from the EU.

5.) By bringing into the heart of the British Government an aggressively Islamophobic, anti-Muslim party, Mrs. May risks undermining the claim by NATO, the West and the United States that its «war on terror» in places such as Syria and Iraq is not a war on Muslims. The Muslim community in Britian is already feeling vulnerable and unfairly targeted through such Government surveillance programmes such as PREVENT. With the DUP having a say over security legislation and other matters this could risk further inflaming tensions with British Muslims and undermine the credibility of British military campaigns in places such as Syria and Afghanistan.

The so-called Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is being wooed by May to provide its quota of 10 MPs in order to form an ad hoc parliamentary coalition. If a deal is done, that would give the Tories a total of 328 parliamentarians – scraping just enough lawmakers to pass future legislation.

It remains to be seen if the proposed arrangement will work. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has derided it as a «coalition of chaos» and is urging his own party to get ready to contend another election in the coming months resulting from the Tory government’s possible collapse.

Several leading British and Irish political figures are warning May that her gamble to govern with the Northern Ireland DUP is risking the return of violence in the British-ruled province. The danger stems from the DUP demanding concessions from London which would inflame sectarian tensions in Northern Ireland.

For the past 20 years since the signing of a peace agreement in 1997, Northern Ireland has witnessed a period of relative calm. A thirty-year sectarian conflict between mainly pro-British Protestants and pro-independence Catholics that began in 1968 had been largely settled. A local administration of power-sharing between the DUP unionists and republicans belonging to Sinn Fein was forged. That managed to keep the lid on seething sectarian passions. But now that lid is in danger of being blown away by May’s one-sided deal-making with the unionists.

John Major, a former British Conservative prime minister (1990-97) who helped facilitate the Irish peace process, has this week added his voice to a chorus of public figures warning Theresa May that her proposed pact with the DUP could reignite conflict in Northern Ireland.

Major said a «fundamental part» of the Northern Ireland peace deal is that the London government needs to be seen as impartial between competing political parties in the province. With May now moving to explicitly rely on the DUP to govern Britain that official impartiality is cast aside.

The warnings from Major have been echoed by the former southern Irish premier Enda Kenny, as well as by former British Labour minister Peter Hain. Hain, who was also involved in implementing the Irish peace process, said that any deal between May’s government and the DUP will come at a painful price for Northern Ireland.

This comes at a particularly delicate time in Northern Ireland. For the past six months, the local administration based in Stormont, Belfast, has been suspended. Sinn Fein – the second biggest party after the DUP – collapsed the power-sharing assembly over a public spending scandal involving DUP ministers.

Some members of the DUP – who were never supportive of the power-sharing deal anyway – are now seizing on the chance to end it entirely. With a direct line of power from London owing to the proposed coalition with May, the DUP are emboldened to go it alone, without Sinn Fein. The latter is the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, the guerrilla group that fought against the British army and police force during the 3o-year conflict. The DUP have never fully reconciled with Sinn Fein whom they accuse of being «terrorists».

Also, another incendiary factor is that the summer months in Northern Ireland are traditionally a time of increased sectarian tensions. This is because pro-unionist organizations led by the Protestant Orange Order (a Masonic group likened to the KKK in the USA), as well as associated paramilitary factions, take to the streets in large-scale marches to commemorate centuries-old battles. The marches which culminate next month on July 12 are seen by many Catholics as provocatively sectarian. Historically, the Orange parades are organized in a «triumphalist» display or supposed supremacy over the minority Catholic community in Northern Ireland.

An ominous fact is that the Orange marches were a tipping factor in the eruption of violence in Northern Ireland back in 1968.

Since the signing of the peace accord in 1997, the British government agreed to demands to restrict these pro-unionist marches from entering into Catholic communities. Again, now with the DUP being seen to have governing favor with the Conservative administration in London, the Orangemen and their overlapping rank-and-file membership of the DUP are demanding that the marching restrictions be lifted.

As former Labour minister Peter Hain notes «it will be difficult for May to say no to the unionists’ demands» owing to the imperative of her own political survival in Westminster. That imperative for the shaky minority Conservative government is all the more amplified because of the impending Brexit negotiations due to start next week with Brussels.

The Brexit talks following last year’s British referendum to leave the European Union are billed as the most important negotiations facing Britain since the Second World War. Yet May’s government is going into these talks with Brussels not knowing whether its negotiating position should be to seek a «hard» or «soft» Brexit, that is, what the degree of separation from the EU should be, either full or partial. May’s government is in a shambles on the Brexit rubicon. Shoring up a semblance of stability in London is therefore seen by the Tories as vital. And that is why May is wide open to leveraging by the DUP, no matter the potentially dire consequences for Irish peace.

Other inflammatory demands expected from the DUP include the closing down of historical prosecutions against members of the Northern Ireland security forces who are accused of collusion with unionist paramilitaries.

The notion that Northern Ireland was beset «only» by «republican terrorists» is a DUP hobby horse. A hobby horse which is shared incidentally by large sections of the Conservative party and the British establishment. That is why Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn was vilified as a «terrorist sympathizer» during the recent election campaign, owing to his past verbal support for Sinn Fein.

The truth is that other parties, primarily the Conservative government of the late Margaret Thatcher (1979-90) and unionist political parties in Northern Ireland like the DUP, were deeply complicit in colluding with illegal paramilitary organizations that supported the political cause of political union between Northern Ireland and Britain. These terrorist organizations included the Ulster Volunteer Force and Ulster Freedom Fighters. They were enabled covertly by British military intelligence, in conjunction with the British-run but now-disbanded Royal Ulster Constabulary police force in Northern Ireland, as well as a local battalion of the British army known as the Ulster Defense Regiment (also disbanded).

This British state counter-insurgency apparatus carried out hundreds of assassinations of republican politicians and other innocent civilians in a deliberate covert campaign of terror to thwart republicanism and the reunification of Ireland as an independent state from Britain.

The DUP and associated organizations like the Orange Order and Ulster Resistance helped to arm the unionist death squads with massive caches of weapons smuggled into Northern Ireland from apartheid South Africa during the 1980s.

One of the present DUP MPs whom Theresa May will be counting on for support to govern Britain is Emma Little-Pengelly. Her father Noel Little, also a DUP member, was convicted for his part in the arms smuggling operation from South Africa.

Several other senior members of the DUP were also implicated in the gun-running for unionist terror groups, including the party founder Ian Paisley (died 2014) and Peter Robinson, who was formerly the First Minister of Northern Ireland before his replacement by the current head of the DUP Arlene Foster. Foster is leading the current talks in London with May to form an informal governing Westminster coalition.

Given the horrendous legacy of bad sectarian blood in Northern Ireland, it seems highly irresponsible for the British Conservative leader to be giving one of the parties to that conflict such disproportionate leverage.

However, tragically, history shows that British Conservative governments have always had a criminally reckless disregard for Irish peace and sovereignty. During the partition of Ireland in 1921, the Tories in London fully embraced the Northern unionists in their seditious threat to use wide-scale violence against Irish democratic rights.

Theresa May made a disastrous gamble to call the British general election last week in a misguided calculation that it would give her a stronger negotiating hand against the rest of Europe. She bet the House of Parliament on her party’s selfish ambitions and she lost big time.

Now May is gambling with peace in Ireland to recoup her disastrous losses.

Before the election, corporate-run opinion polls and media predicted that the Tories would dominate over Labor and ensure that the Labor’s humiliating defeat would spell the political end of Corbyn. Instead, it was May and her Conservatives who were humiliated by losing 13 seats in the House of Commons and being forced to negotiate with a right-of-center Northern Ireland regional party, the Democratic Unionists, to form a shaky minority government.

During the election campaign Corbyn was demonized as a far-leftist not able to govern. Many British younger voters rejected the characterization of Corbyn. Instead, Corbyn’s «back to basics» Laborites, who are committed to the socialist and workers’ rights principles upon which the party was founded, were buoyed by the election. What was rejected by the voters were the austerity moves taken by May and her Tories, austerity that started under the phony Labor governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Blair and Brown had long discarded the workers’ planks of Labor in favor of a set of pro-big business and globalization policies that placed the interests of multinational corporations ahead of those of Britain’s working class.

The Blairites within Labor hoped for a resounding electoral defeat for Corbyn, thus allowing them to reclaim control of Labor for the globalist pro-European Union interests who had originally turned the party away from its socialist roots under the prime ministerships of Blair and Brown. The Blairites were sorely disappointed by Corbyn’s ability to rally workers and students and cost May her majority in Westminster. Corbyn, like 2016 U.S. Democratic Party presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, the Independent Socialist senator from Vermont, was able to mobilize supporters through a combination of grass roots campaigning and the clever use of social media. Sanders traveled to Britain and endorsed Corbyn on a three-day speaking tour throughout the nation. This gesture served as an indication that the «special relationship» between America and Britain, while all-but-destroyed by Donald Trump, remains strong within leftist political circles on both sides of the Atlantic. Corbyn, no traditional Atlanticist, has questioned Britain’s nuclear deterrent and involvement in the NATO alliance. Sanders likewise questions America’s bloated military budget.

Blair, like May, abhors social media and the Internet because of the power it takes from the hands of the oligarchy that rules the United Kingdom. In 2007, just before stepping down as prime minister, Blair lashed out at the Internet in what he called his «farewell lecture on public life.» Blair, who never really left public life, said the Internet was «pernicious, less balanced, more intent on the latest conspiracy theory multiplied by five». Blair, like his successors Brown, David Cameron, and Theresa May, wanted to revise regulatory regimes already in place for newspapers and television to take into account the Internet. Blair’s problem with the Internet was that several stories appeared indicating that the sudden heart attack death of Labor Party leader John Smith in 1994 was «too convenient» in allowing Blair and Brown to assume control over the party and neuter the socialist tendencies of Smith and his supporters. Corbyn has now reclaimed control of Labor from the very ilk who capitalized on Smith’s untimely death.

Corbyn and Sanders send chills down the spines of the uber-capitalists. Corbyn vowed to renationalize British railways, taking them away from the corporate vultures who have placed profits over safety and reliable service. Sanders wants a single-payer universal health care system for the United States. Corbyn wants to stop the steady pace of National Health System privatization initiated under Blair, Brown, Cameron, and May. Corbyn and Sanders both want free tuition university education. Corbyn and Sanders have made socialism «cool again», particularly among young voters who have seen the devastation brought about by declining job prospects wrought by the austerity-guided corporatists who commandeered the British Labor U.S. Democratic Parties. The millennial generation looks poised to reject rule by the one percent of billionaires, instead favoring governments that represent 100 percent of the people.

Corbyn also played it smart on the issue of Brexit. Instead of vigorously campaigning for the UK to remain within the European Union, Corbyn was ambivalent on the issue. By not tying himself to the «Remain» camp, Corbyn fared well among workers who have tired seeing their jobs handed to EU migrant workers streaming into Britain from Romania, Bulgaria, and Poland. Corbyn has essentially sent a message to the left that a socialist does not have to be suicidal when it comes to the sovereignty of Britain and the protection of its working class. Corbyn’s stance is a far cry from the globalist rhetoric espoused by Blair, Brown, and the «globalist brothers»: Ed Miliband and his brother David Miliband.

Sanders also rejects globalist «free trade» deals that have cost American workers heavily in terms of employment, job quality, and wages. Sanders and Corbyn have exposed «liberals» and «socialists» who embrace free trade agreements tied to globalization as the fakes, phonies, and frauds they truly are.

As the case with Corbyn and his opposition Blairite party hacks, Sanders has faced unrelenting criticism from the Democratic Party pro-business interests. Once taking their direction from the pro-corporate Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the Bill and Hillary Clinton wing of the party accused Sanders of being too far left, not a real Democrat, and anti-business. In fact, the DLC’s agenda so poisoned the Democratic Party, making it unpopular among the rank-and-file, the group changed its name to the «Third Way», dropping any pretense of being «Democratic» at all. Most post-election polls now agree that had Sanders been the 2016 Democratic candidate, he would have soundly defeated Donald Trump, winning the «rust belt» states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Ohio that Hillary Clinton lost. 

French leftist leader Jean-Luc Melenchon has cautioned France not to trust President Emmanuel Macron and his new centrist Republic on the Move party and its pro-corporate platform of curbing labor rights. Some French voters agreed with Melenchon by giving him more of the leftist vote – 11 percent – in the first-round parliamentary election that saw a mere 49 percent turnout of voters. 

The Socialist Party, which has long dominated the left in France, received a paltry 7 percent of the vote. Melenchon warned Macron that with such a low turnout, the president had no mandate to implement his anti-labor and other austerity measures. Macron’s party was projected to win some 400 votes in the 577-seat National Assembly in the second-round election on June 18. By beating the Socialists, Melenchon is now the titular leader of the French left and is well-positioned to emerge stronger if Macron, a former Rothschild banker, places France under the austerity jackboot of the international bankers. The Socialist Party, by dancing with the bankers for so long, has forfeited its right to represent the left.

Corbyn’s success in Britain has had ripple effects around the world. In Australia, the Labor Party’s left has seized on the British election to urge the party leadership to return to socialist values. Australian Labor Party and opposition leader Bill Shorten, who is very much in the mold of Blair and Brown, faced calls from leftist Labor MPs to follow Corbyn’s lead and move to the left.

Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders have reminded the world that there is nothing wrong with being a leftist or a socialist. The corporate political parties have succeeded, through a concerted propaganda campaign, to demonize the left. During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly called Sanders a «communist.» The media echoed that false characterization while ignoring the fact that Trump’s policies represented garden-variety fascism. Corbyn and Sanders have reinvigorated socialism and the world will be a better place for it.

According to an account of a working dinner recently held in Downing Street between Mrs. May and President Juncker the food was awful and Mrs. May was living in another «galaxy». At the close of the dinner President Juncker said he was «10 times more sceptical» about the chances of a successful deal than he was before. As his brilliant Chief of Staff Martin Selmayr reflected Brexit cannot and will not be a success, it is a «sad and sorry event» that must be at best managed and contained. It would seem reality still has not sunk in with Mrs. May, her party, their followers and at least half the population in Britain.

The first piece of reality to bite was when the President of the European Council Donald Tusk ruled out striking a UK-EU Free Trade Agreement within the two year divorce proceedings. Mr. Tusk, backed up by the European Council, European Commission and all 27 loyal members of the European Union made it quite clear before any talks could even begin on the subject of a future UK-EU Free Trade Agreement the issues of «people, money and Ireland» would have to be sorted out. The divorce bill for Britain to leave the EU and honour it's budgetary and contractual obligations has risen sharply and now Brussels is calculating it could be anywhere between 80-100 billion Euros.

I think this will be the sticking point at which no deal is reached given the slippery nature of the British State in honouring its financial commitments. Amazingly, back in October Bloomberg News released a report which showed the pound sterling became the world’s worst performing currency in October 2016 against the dollar, even below the Romanian and Colombian currencies and it has not much improved since then. One wonders by the time Brexit takes effect if there will be a pound sterling left? The cliff that the pound has fallen off is already putting severe pressure on prices back in the UK.

The UK is already one of the most extortionate places in the developed Western world for prices. The cost of living in the United States, once one strips out the cost of university and healthcare, is actually much cheaper than Britain. This is due to the United States having a moderate sales tax of 9%. In Britain, it is an eye watering, unbelievable 20%. It could go even higher if the Tories are returned. Mrs. May has pledged not to increase it before 2022 but her word is meaningless. She was for Remain and now is for a Hard Brexit. She was against holding an early General Election but broke that pledge too. May and her ghastly Chancellor Hammond attempted to raise National Insurance contributions for the self-employed only a few weeks ago even though the Tories manifesto at the last General Election promised not to do so. A pattern is developing which is you simply cannot trust a word the Tory Party and Mrs. May say.

One of the immediate effects of Brexit and the collapse of the pound is that prices have already risen sharply. There was the infamous Unilever spat with Tescos back in the autumn and that was just a taste of things to come. Whether it be food, energy, transport, water rates, rents, services etc. the price of living in the UK is through the roof while the quality of the goods and services one gets is not equal to the price one pays and customer service is appalling. The UK is one of the most places in the developed, Western World for value for money and good customer service.

The UK supermarket Morrisons has had to hike the price of marmite by a staggering 12.5%. Meanwhile the National Institute for Economic and Social Research warned correctly that inflation in the UK would start rising fast in 2017. Indeed it jumped from 1.8% in January to 2.3% in February, quite an increase between one month and could go as high as 4% or more with the increase of import costs inevitably feeding through to the high street. As I said, the UK is already an egregiously and peculiarly overpriced place to live in, whether it is prices in the supermarket or on the high street, or the overinflated housing market and out of control rental sector. If prices are this expensive with an inflation rate currently at some where just over 2%, it will not be fun to see what prices stand at this time next year with an inflation rate of 4%.

Here I think about hard working and hard pressed people like a taxi driver in Cambridge I spoke with recently. He told me he works all the hours God sends him, seven days a week. And he still is only making ends meet and has no money left over at the end of the month to put aside for saving for a mortgage. Yet, according to Mrs. May Britain is such a great country to live in. So great, it has to spell it out by inserting the Great into its formal title. If someone has to tell you how great they are, you can bet your bottom dollar, they aren't.

Then there is the issue of the Single Market. Britain’s main export market is the European Union. Indeed, the UK does more trade with Ireland than with China. As the German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated on the morning of the referendum result: «The British people have made it clear. They do not want to be part of the European Union. They do not want to be part of its Single Market». Mrs. May confirmed this with her dreadful, contradictory and incoherent «Global Britain» speech back in January. So, with no prospects of a quick and easy UK-EU tarde agreement the years ahead for the UK, quite possibly crashing out of the EU and it's Single Market on to World Trade Organisation tariffs will be very painful for British businesses and customers. This is why the reassurances that the British Government have given Nissan regarding tariff free access for the UK motor industry and its pronouncements that there will be no change in the border arrangement between Northern and Southern Ireland are worthless. It is not going to be up to the UK Government whether or not the motor industry will be free from EU tariffs or whether or not the island of Ireland is going to be subjected to an EU border.

Brussels holds all the cards on these matters and it will be down to Brussels to decide if the UK motor industry is not subject to EU tariffs and whether border controls and customs checks should be introduced between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland. Britain perhaps has some leverage on these matters but it does not have the final control over them. Ultimately, the UK will have to dependent upon the good will and good graces of the EU with regards to the final outcome on these matters.

This is why Mrs. May is playing a very dangerous and counter-productive game now with stirring up even more anti-European xenophobia for short-term, petty political gain as if the monstrous UK Referendum was not bad enough with the current British Foreign Secretary coming out with statements likening the project of the European Union to Hitler’s vision for Europe. By being so hostile and aggressive with comments such as her «bloody difficult woman» statement and her vulgar declaration on the steps of Downing Street that Brussels was scheming and plotting to undermine British democracy, she is not building the bridges of good will and constructive relationships Britain will need to get a good deal from the European Union. 

Last weekend the 27 EU leaders – Theresa May was not present – approved within a minute or so the guidelines for the EU's negotiation of Brexit first issued on 31 March by President of the European Council Donald Tusk. EU officials said leaders burst into applause as the negotiating stance was waved through. The EU's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, said: «We are ready… we are together». As outgoing French President Francois Hollande said there would inevitably be «a price and a cost for the UK – it's the choice that was made». This is after all, what the British people voted for, so let them have it. I suspect there will be no deal at the end of the two year talks due to my belief that I can not envisage the UK honouring its financial contractual commitments. Thus, the UK will come crashing out without any deal.

If the EU chooses to subject the UK motor industry to tariffs and decides to institute an EU border between Northern and Southern Ireland, there will be nothing the UK can do to stop it. If the EU decides to make life difficult for the millions of British people who holiday on the glorious European continent each year to escape the miserable British weather and sour, passive-aggressive behaviour of their countrymen, there is nothing the UK will be able to do to stop it. There could be huge queues of cars at Dover and a plethora of customs checks. This is why the Leave campaign was such a fantasy, telling people that the UK could vote to leave the EU and still enjoy access to the Single Market.

This was one of the biggest lies told by Leave, just as big as their pledge to spend the extra money saved from EU budget contributions on the NHS. That pledge has quickly evaporated because it was based on lies and I doubt very much once the UK finally exits the EU in 2019 there will be any new money available to spend on the NHS. Indeed, it will be interesting to see what happens to the NHS which is staffed heavily with EU nationals and internationals because of the UK’s inability to train and retain home grown talent. As Matthew Norman writing in The Independent recently said: «Those who disdain free movement of workers from inside and outside the EU (until they find themselves in hospital, or the washing machine breaks down)».

Of all the EU Heads of Government, it has been the German Chancellor who has been the most moderate in her pronouncements on the consequences for Britain of leaving the EU. Now however even Angela Merkel’s patience with the foot dragging and flights of fantasy of the British Government is wearing thin. The Chancellor recently spoke of the «illusions» that some in the British Government still harboured regarding how difficult Brexit and it's negotiations were going to be. Previously the Chancellor had said that: »It is going to be rough going I think. It will not be that easy». This goes to nub of the predicament that the UK has placed itself in.

When it comes to Brexit it is the EU which holds all the cards. That is why perhaps it would have been wiser and in the national interest not to have appointed the «three Brexiters» of Johnson, Fox and Davis to the key posts that will oversee the massive amount of work involved over the coming years in disentangling the UK from the EU. Those appointments hardly sent a conciliatory and emollient message to EU capitals. In fact, it raised the hackles of many in Paris, Berlin et al and Mrs. May bangs on and on like a robot about how she is the only leader in Britain best placed to handle the Brexit negotiations. I think from her performance so far and that of her Government Ministers who brought about this crisis for Britain, it is clear she is the last person well suited to the task ahead.

It is not just an economic and financial storm which is on the horizon for the UK, but a constitutional crisis which could see the breakup of the United Kingdom itself. While the country as a whole voted by 52% to 48% to leave, a more complex and nuanced picture emerges when one examines the breakdown of the regional voting. Scotland overwhelmingly voted to remain. As did Northern Ireland. The Scottish Nationalist First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has been quite right to demand another Scottish Independence Referendum. The Scottish Referendum was held when the UK was still a part of the EU and Scotland was voting to remain part of a UK inside the EU. It would have made more sense to have held the Scottish Referendum after the EU Referendum, not the other way around.

But then, this is Britain after all where there is such poor planning and design with very little though and rigour ever put into anything whether it be the management and running of public services or the design and layout of public buildings. If it gets to such a vote, Scotland could well opt for independence this time as a means to re-enter the EU and gain access to the Single Market, a market place far bigger and far more important for Scotland than remaining in a union with England.

Meanwhile, in Northern Ireland, the decision to leave the EU could very well achieve what thirty plus years of the bombs and bullets of the Provisional IRA failed to do – force a British Exit – with the North reunified with the South within the European Union. For the first time ever in the recent local Northern Ireland Assembly elections the unionists lost their majority for the first time ever and Sinn Fein is now only one seat behind the largest of the unionist parties. 

As General de Gaulle said in his statement when he vetoed the UK’s first application for EEC membership in 1962: «England is insular». It is not just England. Many parts of the UK are insular and brutally provincial, totally un-cosmopolitan and un-globalised. Many British people barely know the correct facts about the composition of their own country, let alone about the rest of Europe and the world. 

No one in England (outside of the political, media, diplomatic and business elites) rarely calls the country by its formal title – the United Kingdom or even Britain – it is simply England for many people and most describe themselves as English rather than British. So one side effect of Brexit will probably be the end of the artificial construct known to only a few as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Britain is well and truly on the Brink and Theresa May is totally the wrong leader for this perilous moment.