Summary: <br> Dr <a href="https://twitter.com/okeefekat?lang=en" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">Katherine O’Keefe</a> is an <a href="https://www.koganpage.com/product/ethical-data-and-information-management-9780749482046" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">author</a>, and the director of training and a management consultant with <a href="https://castlebridge.ie" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">Castlebridge</a>, a data privacy and information governance consultancy. Our discussion referred to <a href="https://twitter.com/okeefekat/status/1174017349554528261" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">a twitter thread by Katherine</a> and another by <a href="https://twitter.com/Tupp_Ed/status/1174069155353497601" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">solicitor Simon McGarr</a>.<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> *****<br> <br> <br> <br> It’s probably just<br> dumb luck, but I made two pretty accurate predictions about the byzantine<br> machinations over the Brexit deal – or non-deal – in British politics. Firstly <a href="https://blog.hereshow.ie/2018/12/its-over-brace-for-catastrophe-theres-no-hope/" data-wpel-link="internal">back on 9 May, before the first of<br> the three House of Commons votes on Theresa May’s failed deal to leave the EU,<br> I pointed out that that single vote meant that she was finished</a>. The defeat was – as turned out to be the case<br> – too big for her to overturn, and no prime minister could long outlive such a<br> defeat, and that this outcome led inextricably to a takeover by a hardline<br> Brexiteer, David Davis, Dominic Raab, Sajid Javid, or most likely Boris Johnson,<br> and thereby a very hard Brexit.<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> Then <a href="https://blog.hereshow.ie/2019/05/heres-how-84-cervical-check/" data-wpel-link="internal">on 21 May, as the polls were showing<br> that the Brexit party would perform strongly in the European elections, at the<br> expense of the Conservatives, I predicted that would influence the election of<br> the new Conservative leader</a>, and make it certain that whoever took the hardest Brexiteer line would<br> win.<br> <br> <br> <br> Two weeks later, May<br> announced her only slightly voluntary intention to resign, and six weeks after<br> that Johnson was elected, on a platform of saying that he would prefer to be<br> dead in a ditch rather than delay Brexit past Halloween; and his half-hearted<br> efforts to play the role of someone involved in serious negotiations haven’t<br> fooled anyone.<br> <br> <br> <br> Now we have the UK<br> Supreme Court ruling that his effort to close down parliament, and prevent<br> those pesky MPs from interfering with his cunning plans are illegal. So what’s<br> going to happen next Mystic Meg? Is there going to be a deal, a no-deal Brexit<br> or no Brexit at all.<br> <br> <br> <br> Well, my crystal ball<br> is a bit cloudy, but it’s worth noting the entry of the supposed political<br> mastermind Dominic Cummings into Downing Street along with Johnson – the guy<br> portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch in the Brexit film for Channel 4. He, as with<br> Johnson and the haunted pencil himself, Jacob Rees Mogg, have reputations for being terribly clever, daddy<br> having paid for Eton and Oxford and all that.<br> <br> <br> <br> But here’s the thing.<br> They all come from inherited wealth, they all have fantastically educated views<br> about the world, but unlike most other politicians, they haven’t had to fight<br> for their power terribly hard. Dominic Cummings has never even joined a<br> political party; Mogg was gifted a seat in the West of England, although I<br> think he commutes into Westminster from the 18th Century, and<br> Johnson made his reputation in the media, before becoming a celebrity mayor of<br> London.<br> <br> <br> <br> None of them worked<br> their way up the greasy political pole as local councillors or fighting for a<br> nomination in a winnable seat. They might see that as beneath them, but that<br> type of apprenticeship into politics is not without value.
