‘The United Kingdom betrayed’ - Campaign for an Independent Britain

If the polls are even close to being accurate, it will not be long before oceans of ink are spilled in analysing the reasons for the Conservative Party’s impending election defeat.

One under-reported yet crucial factor in their electoral demise has been the feeling of betrayal by those who in 2019 cast their vote in favour of the government for the very first time on a promise to ‘get Brexit done.’

Nowhere has that promise been more openly betrayed than in the UK government’s treatment of Northern Ireland.

Dr Dan Boucher, former director of communications for the DUP exposes the duplicity which lies at the heart of the government’s policy towards Northern Ireland, effectively throwing the Province under the bus as a price worth paying to appease the EU.

“In embracing this deal, the UK Government – especially that led by Rishi Sunak whose Windsor Framework makes this disenfranchisement semi-permanent – entered into a utilitarian compact that has placed the UK political community in jeopardy instead of standing up for its ongoing wellbeing. Rather than treating all UK citizens on the same basis, it allowed 1.9 million of us to be sacrificed and made a means to an end, namely avoiding the perceived costs of a no-deal Brexit.”

We enclose a summary of the article below with a link to the original beneath it.

Opinion : ‘Where is our Churchill?’

For all voters next Thursday, the issue of UK Sovereignty should matter

The personal views of a candidate in the UK General Election, exclusively for CIBUK and Facts4EU

One of the key institutions that Brexiteers believe in, for which all UK voters are voting next Thursday, is our United Kingdom Parliament. Indeed, it is precisely because of this that many of us voted for Brexit, expressing the conviction that one of the biggest problems jeopardising national wellbeing was the constraint arising from membership of the EU on ‘the sovereignty of Parliament’.

This historical background

That was a problem because Parliament is the institution that was called into being from 1258 to facilitate the political process begun by Magna Carta in 1215 (whether intended or not) that liberated our governance from the cartel of the King and his Barons, dignifying those who are the ordinary people of this country. Parliament, if our politics is functional, is – unlike the European Commission – our Parliament and supposed to represent us.

The EU and its disenfranchisement of part of the United Kingdom

In this context what do you do if the first thing Parliament does on liberating itself from its self-imposed subjection to the EU (courtesy of the 1972 European Communities Act), is to disenfranchise you? This is what has happened to UK citizens living in Northern Ireland. Rather than suffering from the democratic deficit of old, they have been completely disenfranchised by the decision of Parliament to subject Northern Ireland to what is now a foreign legislature in 300 areas of law. This idea that this is only a problem for Northern Ireland citizens is for the birds.

While in our United Kingdom, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are not collapsed into each other, obliterating English, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish identities. Instead, we operate as a single political community when it comes to outside threats.

Existential threats to us all

Moments of existential pressure from the outside world come in many different forms. The most obvious is war where an aggressor state seeks to annex part of a country. If the Government of the country concedes, it persuades itself that it is worth giving up the best interests of some of its people for the benefit of everyone else. The justification? We sacrifice the unfortunate inhabitants of the annexed part of our country, making them a means to the end of buying peace for the rest of us.

While ‘utilitarian politicians’ will persuade themselves that buying peace in this manner is justified, they will dishonour their country, enfeebling its undergirding sense of community, bringing shame and reproach upon its people. They will also create an opportunity for politicians with a greater sense of honour to seize the initiative, demonstrating the courageous leadership that the utilitarians could not understand, let alone provide.

This was essentially the difference between Chamberlain and Churchill. Notwithstanding the fact that Czechoslovakia was not part of the United Kingdom, the sense of UK moral failure implicated in making some people a means to an end – and trading them for a particular outcome – was the same.

Rishi Sunak and his involvement in acquiescing to the EU threat

The United Kingdom was confronted with such a question when the European Union offered to keep Northern Ireland under its governance for many economic purposes in return for avoiding a no-deal Brexit. They offered a trade deal which would benefit Great Britain but disenfranchising the 1.9 million UK citizens in Northern Ireland in some 300 areas of law.

In embracing this deal, the UK Government – especially that led by Rishi Sunak whose Windsor Framework makes this disenfranchisement semi-permanent – entered into a utilitarian compact that has placed the UK political community in jeopardy instead of standing up for its ongoing wellbeing. Rather than treating all UK citizens on the same basis, it allowed 1.9 million of us to be sacrificed and made a means to an end, namely avoiding the perceived costs of a no-deal Brexit.

Please support our work

We are grateful to Dr Dan Boucher and to Brexit Facts4EU.Org for their kind permission to re-publish this article, which can be read in full here.

About the author:

Dr Dan Boucher, was born and raised in Dorset, He is a former Conservative Party Candidate who left the Party because he could not reconcile himself as a Conservative to the Northern Ireland Protocol/Windsor Framework and moved to Northern Ireland where he is now the TUV/Reform Candidate for Belfast South and Mid Down in the General Election