Clueless about the US, uninterested in Ireland, Boris Johnson and his team are crashing on to rocks they can’t even see
There is so much this government doesn’t know. But two particular areas of ignorance exploded into view this week, allowing us to take a long, hard look at the cost they are inflicting on the country. Both are central to the Brexit project that remains this government’s defining mission – but only one of them is surprising.
Start with the unexpected ignorance, which is of the US and US politics. It’s a surprise, because if there’s one thing that unites the British political class it’s an interest in – even an obsessive fixation on – the politics of the United States. (And yes, I plead guilty.) If you were to hold a nerds’ convention on The West Wing or House of Cards, you’d host it in SW1. The Westminster villager who struggles to identify a single German politician besides Angela Merkel will speak with ease about the latest polling from Maine’s second congressional district or the precise composition of the Wisconsin supreme court.
