Mark François Is An Idiot

The BBC had bad economic news: “The UK economy shrank by more than expected in October, as higher interest rates squeezed consumers and bad weather swept the country … The economy fell 0.3% during the month … Most economists had predicted that the economy would shrink by just 0.1%, but the services, manufacturing and construction sectors all contracted”.

And, as Zelo Street pointed out recently, the economy would have done even less well without recent significant net inward migration. That thought was not allowed to enter the cranium of the most delusional Tory right-wingers, though, for whom FORRINS coming here and taking the jobs Hard Working Brits don’t want to do, then paying taxes and spending, is Streng Verboten.

All of which brings us to the Colonel Blimp de nos jours, Mark Gino François (note cedilla under the c), who has decided that, far from being an insignificant back bencher, he is A Very Important Voice Indeed. Moreover, he is the current chairman of the European Research Group, which does no discernible research, but is merely a convocation of Europhobic wackos.

François (note cedilla under the c) declared to the assembled media that the so-called Rwanda Law has incurred the displeasure of Himself and his group: “Our objection was that we don't believe, as it's currently drafted, the bill is firm enough to ensure that flights will take off to Rwanda … The prime minister had said that he would entertain tightening up the bill”. Do go on.

“We're taking him at his word [Rishi Sunak is no more trustworthy than disgraced former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, which makes François a prime mug] … A number of MPs voted with the government... because they were told in private that there would be amendments later on”. Some of his fellow Tories were conned rotten.

When it came to the vote, the ERG, or at least some of them, courageously abstained, but no Tories voted against. So Sunak still managed to muster a majority of 44. The idea that, as the Mail claimed yesterday, the vote would go “down to the wire” was crap (the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press is now claiming the PM won “for now”). François was bust.

Meanwhile, one of those seeking asylum in the UK who had been incarcerated on the Bibby Stockholm barge took his own life, causing discomfort to the Tory right who only reluctantly consider such people to be human. Mickael Essouma was, as Jacqui Mckenzie pointed out, “A doctor from the Cameroon with over 32 peer reviewed clinical research articles”.

Tory policy towards refugees will, with the certainty of night following day, become even less popular, the racist brains trust out there on the right being insufficient to keep the party in power come the next election. Essouma was not “here to get benefits”. He wasn’t “invading” the country. He wasn’t “low-skilled migration”. This was most inconvenient to François.

[Subsequent news is that Mickael Essouma was not the man who took his own life]

Because what he so desperately wants is to make sure that flights to Rwanda actually happen. And that they be filled with all those FORRINS. This, he apparently believes, is what The People want. Breaking international law. Making the UK even less trustworthy. Making the prospects of trade deals and access to markets (like the European Single Market) less likely.

His delusion was summed up by Jo O’Neill: “Apparently deporting a couple of hundred people to Rwanda will boost the stagnant economy, end poverty, end industrial unrest, resolve the Irish border problem, fix the NHS, ensure our schools are properly run, level up, make mortgages affordable and provide affordable housing”. The public, whisper it quietly, have other priorities.

And, as SDLP MP Claire Hanna put it in the Commons yesterday, “This is just red meat for a common sense group with no common sense, a research group that does no research & [a] star chamber that has no stars”. One Tweeter mused “Mark Francois looks like he should be driving a coachload of pensioners to Marbella”. That’s how important and relevant he is.

But he is damaging the credibility - of his own party. What a complete loser.

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