Aren’t we all so glad that the future of the country has come to this:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] Ursula von der Leyen, who was confirmed as the first woman president of the European Commission in Strasbourg on Tuesday, has said she would support a Brexit extension but warned the Withdrawal Agreement would not be renegotiated. The election of Mrs von der Leyen by the European Parliament came as Boris Johnson sent tremors through Westminster by significantly hardening his Brexit demands by rejecting either a time-limit or a unilateral exit mechanism to the Irish backstop as insufficient to satisfy MPs. [/perfectpullquote]Of course the agreement will be renegotiated. Because the current one won’t pass. And leaving without a deal is of course a renegotiation, isn’t it?
But think on the larger matter. Boris Johnson, for all his merits, was indeed once fired by The Times for making up quotes. And Der Leyen?
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Following questions raised by the website VroniPlag Wiki regarding possible plagiarism in her doctoral dissertation, the German Higher Education Commission conducted an investigation that found only three “serious errors”, and lesser errors in 20% of the work. Christopher Baum, the president of the Hanover Medical School, said: “In the central part of the dissertation, no shortcomings were found. […] The results of the dissertation were scientifically new, valid and of practical relevance.” In particular, there was “no misconduct directed by the intention to deceive”. As the VroniPlag wiki shows, 43.5% of the thesis pages contained plagiarism, and in 23 cases citations were used to sources that did not contain the claimed content. The independence of the investigating commission was questioned as von der Leyen personally knew its director from joint work for an alumni association.[/perfectpullquote]Hmm, eh, just hmm.
Aren’t we lucky that politics has thrown up two such gargantuans to negotiate our future?
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Neither will really wield power, in Brussels it is the General-Directorates who pull the strings, in the UK it is MPs (who were elected on a promise of delivering Brexit) and the Lords (who were never elected) who will try to put the kibosh on the UK leaving the EU.
Allegedly our dual governments (HMG and the EU) will be headed by those who have both been shown to be economical with the actuality, in that there is symmetry.
However, there is a difference, a big one that may well be the UK's saving grace, there never has been nor will there ever be a General Election in Brussels, there have and there will GEs in UK, and one is coming sooner than perhaps later.
If the 31st October slips past with no GE or exit from the EU, over to Mr. Farage and increasingly impressive crew, who will wield more real power to influence events than Fraulein von der Leyen and Mr. Johnson put together.
A pendant writes: shurely Frau von der Leyen? She's got 7 kids, after all!
That I did not know.