G.O. says UK’s a go-go in EU U-turn.
Chancellor George Osborne has joined the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union in a surprise move carrying immense ramifications for the result of June’s referendum on Britain’s membership of the 28-nation club.
Osborne, previously a staunch supporter of Remain, formally announced his decision in the House of Commons shortly after leaking it to sections of the Tory media. Speaking with the confidence and self-assurance that comes with being born into wealth and power, and refusing to apologise for the confusion his latest policy reversal had caused, Osborne told the Commons:
“Only a few days ago during the budget debate, as several members of the Shadow Cabinet whose names I’ve never bothered to learn were droning on about people with disabilities committing suicide or lapsing into comas, I sat in this House laughing smugly, joking and generally dissing them with my very dear friend Michael Gove, plotting this, my latest U-turn.”
“We, the government, made a mistake in recommending a Yes vote, a mistake made we were so involved tackling the desperate state of Britain’s public finances caused by Labour’s recession. But when we don’t get things right, when the maths don’t seem to be adding up vis-à-vis my winning, I’m always prepared to listen and learn, discard my principles and head off in a completely different direction.”
Asked later what were the key arguments for Britain exiting the EU. Osborne responded: “Well, Donald Trump favours Brexit, and he’s a real wise guy, Mr. Success. It is vital for Britain’s future security however that I become the next Tory leader, but I’m currently so unpopular with my fellow Conservative MPs that I might not even get on the ballot paper. That would jeopardise our austerity programme, our continued plans to decimate local government, particularly in traditional Labour areas, as well as my relentless fiscal gymnastics, my shuffling around of the public finances and massaging the tax system to benefit the rich.
“Also, it now looks as if I’m going to need another decade or more to finally produce a budget surplus, whilst the idea of Boris as PM chills me to the core. He’s a blithering idiot, he’d probably get his leg caught up in the railings at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday and have to take his trousers off”
Osborne added: “This volte-face also allows me to work again alongside Iain Duncan Smith, a man for whom I have great admiration and respect. And frankly, it never seemed right being on the same side as Jeremy Corbyn or any of his terror-loving, migrant-hugging, cheese-eating, surrender monkey comrades.”
Osborne’s decision is also believed to have been influenced by a telephone conversation with his brother Reg, who lives in Melbourne. Aussie Osborne is thought to have expressed delight at Australia’s ability to house refugees, poor people and non-whites generally on the Pacific island of Nauru, which suggested to Osborne that once outside the EU Britain would be free to reach a similar arrangement with the Falklands.
Yet with Osborne having gone back on so many of his key policies and, given his reputation as a scheming, untrustworthy Machiavellian so and so, perhaps the only surprise is that anyone is surprised. As the chancellor said himself last night: “To (mis)quote Margaret Thatcher: ‘U-turn if you want to.’ Thanks, Maggie, I think I will.”