UK Government crumbles into farce amid Revolutionary Conservatism

The era of Revolutionary Conservatism is upon us and it is darkly stupid, brutal and disconnected from principles or vision.

Welcome to what Fintan O’Toole called “the United Kingdom of Absurdistan”. O’Toole noted: “Brexit is a very strange kind of revolution – the heroic overthrow of imaginary oppression, in which tragedy and farce are not sequential but simultaneous and deeply interwoven.”

Apart from the chaos and the bad theatre, the emerging reality is that Britain is a deeply unstable place.

The mythical “checks and balances” don’t exist, the disgraceful state of the media is a real problem for democracy, the sense of privilege and right to rule personified by Rees-Mogg’s insouciance lounging is merely a red flag to the state of the whole miserable project.

Contradictions are everywhere. “The people” are called upon to usurp their elected representatives, the Labour Party who have been calling for an election now refuse one, the Rebel Alliance calculating correctly that Boris and his henchmen need to be hung out to dry for as long as possible.

The House of Lords emerges as the people’s champion, as does Phil ET Hammond and Lord Soames.

READ MORE: Philip Hammond: There's 'no progress' in Brexit negotiations

Waiting in the wings are the Brexit Party, momentarily eclipsed by the nuttiness of the Cummings-Johnson shitshow but eagerly waiting to pounce on any deviance from the No Deal no surrender script.

Meanwhile, “please leave my town” is trending in Germany as a very polite man asks the Prime Minister to depart.

The rejoinder “I will soon” is probably true, whether Johnson likes it or not. Sovereignty has been reclaimed by hedge-fund owners, dark money and an Etonian cabal, only to abandon parliamentary democracy.

But two things stand out from the dark madness. First, it’s not a game and the economic ruin of No Deal are going to be very harsh and not felt by the top players.

Second, love it or hate it, this weird entity called Britain voted for Brexit. While the comedy clowns of Johnson’s degenerate government are a theatre of the absurd, you can’t have a referendum and not deliver it.

But “not delivering” is what everybody is up to. It’s an open secret that Boris Johnson is not engaging in any negotiations with Europe at all, and has no intention to.

Corbyn’s official opposition has been patchy and incoherent, the LibDems have been opportunist and the SNP have been tentative and awkward.

The danger is that a political crisis morphs and burns into a state in which the entire political class becomes smeared with the constitutional excrement being generated daily by the Brexit phenomenon.

Boris Johnson has the look of a person slowly becoming aware of his almost complete inadequacy for the role bestowed on him, a half century of extreme privilege coming home to roost, not on him, but on us.

READ MORE: Boris Johnson is a limping and rudderless PM without a plan

The incredible thing to realise as you survey this scene of wreckage is that people, only a few years ago, tried to describe Britain – its structures, institutions and economy – as a source of strength, reliability and support.

“Stronger Together” was only the slogan of an entire narrative about our “ancient Union”, how it was unique in the world and the font of immeasurable solidarity.

Britain was a rock around which poor Scotland must cling. “Pooling and sharing” was just one example of the benign magnificence that shone out of London like a beacon of hope.

IN the shattered wreckage of Britain’s political system, it’s clear that the farce was always there, just under the surface. No-one has reformed our broken institutions, they have been left to fester and rot by politicians and parties that have benefited from their brokeness.

The stinking mass of British democracy is exposed to everyone. If it’s been obvious to lots of people for a very long time, that is no consolation prize as we veer towards the possibility of violence and further chaos.

Back to Aberdeenshire. When Prime Minister Boris Johnson appeared with Alister Jack and Andrew Bowie to announce money they’d previously withdrawn from farmers was being reinstated, they were togged out in the inevitable tweed and Barbour jackets.

Their message wasn’t to a Scottish-wide audience, it was to a class that exists both sides of the Tweed, as Gaughan used to say.

But amidst the rubble there is hope at hand.

YouGov polls this week showed a huge thumping majority for the SNP at any General Election this autumn, and a mirrored pro-independence majority at Holyrood, dispensing with the need for the trans-obsessed Bathist Party’s narcissist intervention.

The results – if they played out – would be catastrophic for Richard Leonard’s disastrous leadership and provide a true legacy of Ruth Davidson’s time at the helm, but more importantly give a renewed and huge mandate for negotiating independence.

There is – as always – opportunity in crisis and we should do well to hold on to the tiller and not change course.

We need to avoid being drawn into the madness.

The drama is addictive and compelling but is also deeply toxic, riven with class interest and clandestine operations and propaganda.

It will fail in chaos very soon but we must make sure we don’t fail with it.