Troy

On what should have been Day 2 of UK Year 0000 PB (Post Brexit) the world is going slightly mad over the case of Dominic Grieve and his losing the confidence of his constituency association. MPs are queueing up to wring their caps and intone solemn eulogies to the career of a political giant. To which the general public are saying, Dominic who? Outside Westminster he is an also-ran, only today grabbing the headlines because of what many see as his sheer treachery in seeking to overturn Brexit. But what went wrong?

We use to scoff at the sight of natives rending their garments on the newsreels, sobbing in public and ululating in grief and despair, but since the canonisation of Saint Diane, the British have become mawkish and have taken to repeating the self-same public displays we once used to find so quaint. When the French marched en grève, burning sheep and blocking roads we used to chuckle, remarking that this wasn’t how the British did things. And having invented sport, as such, we were paragons of fair play – play up and play the game and a friendly ovation for the victors, should we lose. In short, we slightly despised all that foreign emotion.

But now look; the British sense of fair play used to mean that we may not have agreed with you but short of coming round to your way of thinking we could respect your view and respectfully defer to you winning the debate. Agreeing to disagree characterised adult discourse and a certain pragmatic acceptance that sometimes a decision made was better than a decision deferred and spilled milk was something only Johnny Foreigner would cry over. How things have changed.

Had Remain won the referendum – an outcome most of us expected – we would have grumbled a little, maybe even protested a bit, but most of us would – having had our say – retreated to the sidelines and politely clapped you off the pitch. We’d have been British about it. We certainly wouldn’t have seized the ball, declared extra time and carried on playing after sunset, the ref blowing his whistle for all he was worth.

But of course, I’m living in the past. I’m imagining what I believe would have happened had the competition been between only the British, when in reality this was always between Britons and Europeans. Grieve is not behaving like a son of Albion, but displaying the petulance of a Spaniard, the disdain of the haughtiest Frenchman and the arrogance and sense of superiority that comes naturally  to the Teutonic race.

Oh, of course we can trust them...

Grieve and his ilk are no longer British, if ever they were; they are Europeans, first and foremost. It is one thing to infiltrate a foreign power with double agents from outside, but quite something when you can get their own governing class to betray the country without even offering anything in return. Beware of Grieves bearing gifts - our Parliament is nothing more than an EU Trojan horse. Time to burn it down.