Wednesday 22 July 2020

Do as I say, not as I do


The Foreign Secretary stood up in the House of Commons this week and very sombrely announced sanctions against China. His argument was that it is completely unacceptable that a country should breach an international treaty to which it had signed up. But hold on a moment: the EU Withdrawal Agreement is an international treaty on which the UK Government is attempting to renege daily. And government MPs are amongst the authors of a new report advocating that the UK should unilaterally repudiate that agreement and present the EU with a new one, on a ‘take it or leave it’ basis, to replace it. For English exceptionalists, it seems that the grand and important principle that states should abide by agreements they make only applies to other, lesser countries. Such are, apparently, the ‘great British values’ to which we are all supposed to subscribe.

3 comments:

dafis said...

Raab - what a prize arse. Yet he is an accurate representation of the entitled arrogant supremacist bunch of shits now running the U.K. Sadly they can claim to be doing it "in our name" because we gave them an 80 seat majority. This should fire up a serious secessionist spirit in Wales like it as for a while in Scotland but hardly a flicker. Explain.

Spirit of BME said...

The EU Withdrawal Agreement: the first part was binding which referenced the mechanism and the second part was the Political Statement which was full of loving words which both sides agreed was not binding.
Since history was recorded countries have broken, sorry- put aside agreements, when they find circumstances have changed. I think the bit of bother we are going through might qualify since this agreement was given life.

John Dixon said...

Spirit,

"...the first part was binding which referenced the mechanism and the second part was the Political Statement which was full of loving words which both sides agreed was not binding" True. But HMG is attempting to renege on elements of both parts.

"Since history was recorded countries have broken, sorry- put aside agreements," Also true. But it ill behoves a state which is doing precisely that to criticise another state for doing the same thing.