Boris Johnson’s disgraceful failure to protect our US ambassador from Donald Trump’s bullying is yet another reason to demonstrate on Saturday week against our probable new prime minister. The “no to Boris, yes to Europe” demo is taking place three days before Johnson is expected to be selected as leader of the Tory Party by a mere 0.25% of our population.
Johnson refused again and again during Tuesday night’s ITV debate to say he would keep Kim Darroch as ambassador if he beats Jeremy Hunt in the contest to be our next prime minister. His failure to defend our man in Washington from Trump’s contemptible attacks – which included calling him “wacky”, a “very stupid guy” and a “pompous fool” – were one of the reasons Darroch fell on his sword.
Johnson has shown he will bow and scrape to curry favour with Trump. This sadly isn’t just his own terrible judgment. It is a sign of how Brexit is undermining our power in the world.
If we don’t stop the madness, whoever is prime minister will be pushed around. Trump will bully us. China will bully us. Even our erstwhile friends in Europe will bully us. We will be tempted to suck up to the bully-boys.
By contrast, if we say “yes to Europe”, we will be one of the big powers in a bloc of 28 nations. We will be able to hold our heads high in the world.
July 20th
Park Lane, London
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On July 20, people will be expressing their justified anger that a hard Brexiter is being forced on the country against its will. It would be undemocratic to rip us out of Europe without first checking that the people still want Brexit, when what is on offer is so different from what was promised three years ago.
Don’t think Hunt will be any better if he pulls off a victory against the odds. He’s on pretty much the same path to destruction as Johnson and may be less likely to do a u-turn.
We will not just be saying “no” to Boris and “no” to Brexit. We will be saying “yes” to Europe. People will speak with passion about how we can fix the country’s real problems if we stop fixating about Brexit. The list is endless – the NHS, the climate crisis, knife crime, child poverty, opportunities for young people, care of the elderly, social mobility, lack of investment in large swathes of our country for decades and so forth. We will have the money, time and power to fix these problems if we stay in the EU.
So get out on July 20 and say “no to Boris, yes to Europe”.