Boris Wants International Effort - Er, Hello

As the Murdoch Sun continues to serialise the nausea-inducing “interview” they have secured with alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, including such creative claims as doctors preparing to announce his death to the nation - they don’t provide that as part of the service, not even for Bozo - he has been preparing to issue a rallying cry to those working to find a vaccine against the Coronavirus.

This exhortation to other countries, and our own, to pull together has energised headline writers in our free and fearless press, from free sheet Metro “PM calls on countries to join forces in a ‘shared endeavour’”, through the Daily Brexit, still called the Express “PM launches international mission in battle for ‘humanity’ to beat the virus”, and the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph telling “Efforts to develop jab should not become a competition between countries, PM insists”. Hurrah for Bozo!

According to the Guardian, Johnson will say in his speech “The more we pull together and share our expertise, the faster our scientists will succeed. The race to discover the vaccine to defeat this virus is not a competition between countries but the most urgent shared endeavour of our lifetimes. It’s humanity against the virus - we are in this together and together we will prevail”. His International development secretary had more of the same.

Anne Marie Trevelyan added “It is only by working together that we will prevent future waves of infection and end this pandemic as quickly as possible. By strengthening developing countries’ health systems and working to find a vaccine, the UK is playing its part in stopping the global spread of coronavirus to save lives everywhere and protect our NHS”. But Bozo’s bluster was not the first such intervention.

The Guardian again: “Writing in the Independent newspaper on Sunday, the leaders of France, Germany, Italy and Norway and senior EU officials said the outbreak has ‘caused devastation and pain in all corners of the world’ They said responding to the ‘global challenge’ requires ‘bringing together the world’s best - and most prepared - minds to find the vaccines, treatments and therapies we need to make our world healthy again’”.

And there’s the rub: EU and EEA countries are already talking together, working together, and had the UK not embarked on its disastrous course of wrenching itself out of the EU, beginning with David Cameron’s ill-advised vanity referendum four years ago, then there would have been real substance in Johnson’s words. Today there is not.

How he expects instant cooperation, after many in his own party have made it a significant part of their life’s work to sneer, insult and grandstand, while denigrating every move, every utterance, every initiative to come out of the EU and those aligned to it, is an interesting challenge, and something that he most likely hasn’t even considered.

This is, at best, for home consumption alone: across the Channel, as he stands there and pontificates, eyes will roll, heads shake, shoulders shrug, and a variety of expletives and intensives will be muttered, sotto voce, in response. Or he will just be ignored.

Brexit meets reality. Part of a series destined to end in tears. And not for the EU.

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