Re-reading Johnson's Greenwich speech prior to my #LSEGermanSymposium panel this afternoon where I am to discuss sovereignty and the EU
A lot of the speech was clearly not written by Johnson, as the prose does make sense in places, at least grammatically.
But these parts, politically, make no sense at all.
But these parts, politically, make no sense at all.
The argument essentially boils down to this:
1️⃣ We want to leave the EU so as we can set our own standards
2️⃣ But trust us, we will not change our standards to undercut your standards
3️⃣ But we do not respect that the standards were set by you, EU
1️⃣ We want to leave the EU so as we can set our own standards
2️⃣ But trust us, we will not change our standards to undercut your standards
3️⃣ But we do not respect that the standards were set by you, EU
Now of course this being Johnson you shouldn't trust a word of it, but were you to take this at face value it basically says "We want theoretical rather than actual sovereignty"
Or it's not *what* you are doing to us, but *how* you are doing it.
Or it's not *what* you are doing to us, but *how* you are doing it.
Or extending this further still: we want to take back control, but we do not practically want to use the control that we have taken back.
All I can conclude is we should not see all of this too literally. The emotional appeal of the return of control, and the political repulsion of something like the role of the ECJ, is more of a motivator than whatever *practical* control could be returned.
As someone who has done political work for years with the aim of making the world a *practically* better place, all of this leads me to just 🤷♂️
Perhaps we should call what the UK Government is doing "placebo sovereignty" - it has the impact of making people think control has been regained, although in practice it hasn't
