BY now, if the pandemic hadn’t intervened, the year-long festival of Brexit would just be getting under way. This would have reached its sweaty climax in the summer, adjacent to one of the Queen’s birthdays, when there would have been a public holiday and a morass of Union Jacks.

The UK Tory Party and the British establishment it is sworn to defend is nothing, though, if not wily and adaptable. How else do you think it manages to persuade those whom it reviles and exploits – working-class people – to keep it in power? And so, another flag-waving festival will have to be arranged to replace the Brexit one.

Boris Johnson’s unveiling this week of his roadmap out of lockdown provided a few hints. The British Prime Minister is aiming to deliver the nation from all restrictions by the middle of June, having previously said he’d be guided by data and not dates.

The narrative of British exceptionalism is already under way in Westminster, conveyed as always by the right-wing press and the BBC, the job opportunity scheme for those seeking adviser’s jobs in the Conservative Party. The Oxford vaccine has already had some UK ministers proclaiming the superiority of British science and research.

This has been followed by more triumphalism about how quickly the vaccination programme has been rolled out. Much less attention is now given to the massive death toll – among the world’s most grievous – and how the UK Government’s catastrophic management of the pandemic in its early stages was a major cause of this.

From now until June, the British public is being fitted up to receive a new messaging programme: that Boris has saved Britain. On or around June 30 there will be a VC Day (Victory over Coronavirus). The Prime Minister will appear on the balcony of Buckingham Palace with the Queen to milk the acclaim of the crowds. No questions will ever be asked about the various expensive privileges we bestow on the Windsors which made the Covid a breeze for them.

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This anointed time allowed them more time with one the world’s finest art collections and their vast property portfolio. And the horses too, of course; always the horses. Prince Andrew will have been especially grateful for this pandemic.

The Sun will organise street parties and bonfires for the ceremonial burning of the face-masks. Other papers will carry artwork with a giant, Union Jack-themed hypodermic needle sticking out of the UK land-map while Europe will still be covered with an EU-themed face-mask.

Middle England will get howling with the bevvy and the West Midlands law enforcement community will be on standby for attacks on anyone not deemed to be patriotic enough. Nigel Farage will appear at some point to say that Britain’s natural ingenuity and physical vigour has led us to this day. Lurking in the background will be the suggestion that some ethnic minorities threatened the recovery by their reluctance to take up the vaccine offering. If I’d been gas-lit, victimised and intimidated for decades by the white UK establishment I’d be suspicious about the vaccination programme too, by the way.

That Britain’s physique will by the end of 2021 be trimmer by around 150,000 bodies will be glossed over. Also concealed and squirrelled away from too much public scrutiny will be various and egregious acts of banditry carried out by the UK Government on the public purse. Last week, a High Court judge, Mr Justice Chamberlain, ruled that the UK Health Secretary, Matt Hancock broke the law by awarding contracts without publishing details in a timely way.

The judge made his ruling following a legal challenge brought by the Good Law Project whose investigations had revealed the awarding of hundreds of contracts worth approaching £1 billion to supply personal protective equipment.

NOT only were these awarded without competition, they were often given to firms with no known expertise in this sector. Many of these were, naturally, found to be deficient or failed to meet minimum regulations.

As such, the Government of the UK also stands accused of putting in further harm’s way those who’d be given this equipment. If you worked on the front line of the NHS would you be happy about wearing a face mask or a protective gown made by a sweetie firm with no expertise in this field of production?

The judge also ruled: “The Secretary of State spent vast quantities of public money on pandemic-related procurements during 2020. The public were entitled to see who this money was going to, what it was being spent on and how the relevant contracts were awarded.”

Matt Hancock also spent more than £200k of taxpayers’ cash trying to defend this action.

Some of these firms were also given what is known as “VIP lane” treatment because they had close connections to Government ministers. Indeed, firms with these connections were 10 times more likely to be awarded these contracts if they had personal or professional connections to the UK Government and Tory Party.

In the world’s marketplace it quickly became known that there was a very lucrative scam being worked here and that a window of opportunity existed for the widespread filling of boots. Thus the percentage mark-up on items designed to curb human suffering and loss was obscenely high.

This is essentially how capitalism works in normal life. Absolutely nothing and no amount of human suffering can ever be permitted to get in the way of profiteering.

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The Government – predictably – claimed that the extraordinary nature of the global pandemic meant that some rules were necessarily waived for the purposes of lifesaving expediency. Knowing that this is a Government absolutely enslaved by free-market and neo-liberal values I’d say that several members of the Cabinet and assorted party donors saw the pandemic as the ideal opportunity to enrich themselves from public funds in the certain knowledge that others would settle the account further down the line.

The mindset that thinks this is acceptable or seeks to justify it is essentially evil. Yet, it’s this mindset that influences the entire philosophy of this UK Government. Essentially, anything goes if a lie to justify it can be made to stick.

In Scotland the independence movement has been split wide open on a number of vexatious issues that cut to the essence of what sort of values we want to influence a new-post-independent Scotland. Much of this has been ugly and menacing in its own right and right now I absolutely despair at the conduct of the current leadership of the SNP.

But sweet Mother of God, there’s nothing like taking a look from time to time at the naked wickedness that lies at the heart of the UK Government to remind yourself why Scotland can’t be a part of this Union.