{"id":1016101,"date":"2026-06-09T20:55:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T20:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1016101\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T20:55:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T20:55:17","slug":"a-very-british-civil-war-review-ghastly-portrait-of-ruling-classes-having-a-lark-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1016101\/","title":{"rendered":"A Very British Civil War review: Ghastly portrait of ruling classes having a lark \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

British politics often resembles a bunch of poshos having a bun-fight while ordinary people live with the consequences. Never was that truer than in the case of Brexit<\/a> \u2013 the comedy that keeps on giving, the debacle that keeps on taking.<\/p>\n

A full decade on from the UK\u2019s fateful vote to leave the EU, the story is revisited by Norma Percy in Brexit: A Very British Civil War – Part One <\/b>(BBC One, Monday, 9pm), a two-part documentary that \u2013 to quote Bono \u2013 will make you think, \u201ctonight thank God it\u2019s them instead of you\u201d. If nothing else, it achieves the remarkable feat of making you grateful for parish-pump Irish politics and \u201conly in Ireland\u201d characters such as the Healy-Raes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is fashionable to decry Ireland\u2019s \u201call politics is local\u201d system and the perception that public representatives are elected to the D\u00e1il not on the basis of any particular philosophy but rather on whether they\u2019ve fixed the roads and so forth. But look at the alternative as sketched out in this ghastly portrait of Britain\u2019s ruling classes. What a rogues\u2019 gallery it is \u2013 from the perma-smirking Boris Johnson<\/a> to the aloof former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a man who cycled in his sandals while Rome figuratively burned.<\/p>\n

Nobody interviewed has anything at all to say about the benefits of Brexit. Not even Johnson has the energy for such a pretence today. Instead, they look back on the Leave campaign as a bit of a grand lark.<\/p>\n

Johnson remembers photographers decamping outside his house and a tense exchange with pro-Remain Conservative leader David Cameron over his old school pal\u2019s decision to back the Leave side. One of then UKIP leader Nigel Farage\u2019s advisers, meanwhile, half-attempts a stereotypical Irish accent when recalling the intervention of Bob Geldof, who ambushed Farage by boat as the politician was steaming towards Westminster with a flotilla of disgruntled fishermen.<\/p>\n

Ireland is mentioned in passing in the second episode as the documentary briefly touches on the intervention of Tony Blair and John Major \u2013 serious politicians from a more serious time \u2013 and their warning that sealing the UK off from Europe would threaten hard-won peace in Northern Ireland. <\/p>\n

This was met with derisive indifference from many on the Leave side, who in general approached Brexit as a jolly jape. There was none jollier than Johnson, who stays on brand by declining to comb his hair for his conversation with Percy. But under the pratfalling was a thread of seriousness, recalls his sister Rachel. Johnson, she remembers, was irked that Cameron had become prime minister before him. \u201cThe fact that Dave became PM first, even though he was two years younger, I think really riled Boris. He thought that it was his turn to be world king before it was David Cameron\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0BackStory on RT\u00c9 One: \u2018Some people would tell me I\u2019m absolutely not Irish… I feel less accepted\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He had his wish in the end, and while he says here that he would have taken up residence in No 10 with or without Brexit, he was clearly the winner from this bizarre power play. The losers, of course, are ordinary Britons who have seen their economy stagnate. But nobody in this documentary seems to have given them a moment\u2019s thought.<\/p>\n

Brexit: A Very British Civil War \u2013 Part Two airs on BBC Two next Monday, June 15th at 9pm. Also available on BBC iPlayer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"British politics often resembles a bunch of poshos having a bun-fight while ordinary people live with the consequences.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1016102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5226],"tags":[192,16792,18397,5109,802,748,281245,23522,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,33944,113989,205515,384,27005,16,15],"class_list":["post-1016101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brexit","tag-bbc","tag-bob-geldof","tag-bono","tag-boris-johnson","tag-brexit","tag-britain","tag-danny-healy-rae","tag-david-cameron","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-union","tag-great-britain","tag-jeremy-corbyn","tag-john-major","tag-michael-healy-rae","tag-nigel-farage","tag-tony-blair","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116722147579815862","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1016101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1016102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1016101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1016101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1016101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}