macliam wrote: ↑Thu Jul 14 2022 11:37pm
Chadwick wrote: ↑Thu Apr 28 2022 6:25pm
Did Boris, Farage, Gove, RJM etc all genuinely believe ............
They believed it was in their own interest. Johnson decided that Brexit would advance his career, Farage was already a full-time fraud, Gove is a serial pursuer of the main chance and JRM (as I presume you meant) is a total hypocrite. Brexit was just a disruptor, because the subsequent chaos has seen a massive wealth transfer from the taxpayer to the rich.
Quite agree. There's a tiny part of me that hopes they really thought this would work, that their cause was driven by a genuine belief that it was the right thing to do.
Obviously Boris just saw it as a chance to further his career. I don't think for a moment he expected to be at the podium the day after, blinking in the sunlight and wondering what he'd just done.
Gove just hung on to Boris' coat tails and hoped he wouldn't fall off the ride.
JRM and the other ERG members were almost certainly more concerned with the tax status of their wealth. Not particularly the impending rule changes, but generally a slow erosion of their ability to squirrel money away out of the taxman's reach and to generally do whatever the hell they wanted without fear of consequences.
Farage... I think is the most honest of them all. He's been publicly banging the same drum for many years. Was he concerned about how it would effect Britain if we evicted all foreigners? Not particularly. I think he half expected Spitfires to deliver the post twice a day, while we drank water out of hoses and won the World Cup. What had started as a bigoted little club had become a nice career for himself, quietly doing nothing in Brussels. I don't think he ever really expected to succeed in his goals, but he had a steady income, a bit of travel, some influence in the European Parliament and it was all quite jolly. Then suddenly his world was upended and he could hardly just sit there and do nothing after all those years. He either revealed himself as a fraud, or he stood up and shouted "Leave!" He must have realised he was pulling the rug from under his own feet. I wonder if he feels any humility now he's lost his livelihood and is degraded to flogging his TikToks for a few quid a time.