GB News victimhood seeking and the EU

Whenever you see that Neil Oliver is trending on social media it’s like getting a phone call at two o’clock in the morning. You might not know what it is exactly, but you already know that it’s going to be nothing good. On Friday the bold Neil was all over Twitter, trying to stir up something to allow him to feel victimised before the start of his new show on the British version of Fox News. GB News, headed by that other full of himself Neil, the Andrew one, has been launched because, not satisfied with their possession of the majority of the print media, right wing Brexit supporting and anti-lockdown controversialists needed yet another platform from which to megaphone at us all about how terrible it is that they’re being silenced.

This time Unionism’s favourite walking advert for hair care products and dodgy takes on history was opining about how lockdown was the biggest mistake in the history of the world. Yes, worse than the Bengal and Irish famines, worse than the Holocaust, worse than the imperial dick waving that led to the First World War and the deaths of millions, worse than the Armenian Genocide, worse than the massacres of Native Americans and indigenous Australians, worse than the Holodomor and the gulags, worse than the Atlantic slave trade, worse than centuries of religious war and hatred, worse than colonialism and the Opium Wars, worse than China’s Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. They are all but trifles compared to the suffering endured by poor Neil and Lawrence Fox because lockdown meant that they couldn’t go to the pub and couldn’t push a shopping trolley around Sainsbury’s without having to wear a facemask. They’re the real victims here, well, them and Tim Wetherspoons.

These are the kinds of truths we’d be missing out on without GB news and its tousle haired presenter. Who needs public health experts when you have “archeologist, television presenter and man guaranteed to make a million supporters of Scottish independence scoff simultaneously in derision” Neil Oliver? Personally I have a feeling that giving Neil Oliver a platform may be the biggest single mistake in world history, and while I am no historian, I suspect I may not be alone in that assessment. Neil’s expertise begins and ends with him asking the director to tell the camera operator to do the shot of him standing on a rock and looking windswept and interesting as his hair tousles in the breeze.

Meanwhile Gordon Brown, that other well known opponent of Scottish independence, and avid attention seeker has also been making his own desperate bid for relevance this week. Gordie told people in England that he won’t give up the campaign to get back into the EU, although he’s pretty determined to stop the campaign to rejoin the EU which has the best chance of success. Gordie’s declaration was met with enthusiastic approval from pro-EU campaigner in England who don’t have the same experience as people in Scotland do of hearing Gordie make promises about things that he thinks people want to hear and then buggering off when it comes to doing anything about it.

The uncomfortable truth for Gordie is that there is only one realistic and credible campaign to rejoin the EU anywhere in the UK and that’s a campaign that Gordie is implacably opposed to, to the extent of roping in members of the royal family to provide a touch of glamour that the shambling Gordie could never supply. This is of course the campaign for Scottish independence. It’s realistic in that Scotland is the only country in the UK where there is a large and substantial majority who are opposed to Brexit (greater even than the anti-Brexit majority in Northern Ireland). It’s also realistic because despite the fantasies of British nationalists who want to convince themselves that Spain would veto a Scottish application to join the EU, a claim that has been debunked more often than a Vow from Gordon Brown, the EU would welcome an application for membership from a Scotland which has consistently shown itself to be in tune with EU values and goals. On the other hand the EU would regard an application from the UK to rejoin with considerable distrust and suspicion. The UK spent its entire period of time as an EU member as a fully paid up member of the awkward squad, constantly demanding special treatment and privileges. Very like the complaints of a GB News presenter about lockdown, come to think of it.

Before considering an application to rejoin from the UK, the EU would want to know that the UK was going to be a constructive and cooperative partner, all the more so because the UK’s obstructionism and disregard for agreements reached during the Brexit negotiations mean that Westminster has burned through what little sympathy and patience that EU members had left.

At a very minimum the EU is going to want to know that the UK isn’t going to drag it through Brexit MK II shortly after rejoining, all the more so because it is highly unlikely that the EU would agree to the special treatment and opt-outs the UK enjoyed the first time round.

As a very minimum the EU will want assurances that there is a substantial and significant majority of UK voters in favour of membership – much as currently exists in Scotland. 52% vs 48% just isn’t going to cut it. Considering the lamentable state of the media in the UK, that’s going to be an uphill struggle, one which is just about to get even more difficult with the imminent launch of the right wing pro-Brexit and avowedly British nationalist GB News, which will no doubt pump out a diet of victimhood seeking exceptionalism, telling its listeners that the UK is the victim of those vile Europeans.

If you do want to get back into the EU and have your rights as a European citizen restored, the quickest and most reliable way of doing so by far is to campaign for Scottish independence. Gordon Brown’s claims of campaigning to get the entire UK back into the EU have as much credibility as his Vow.

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