Brexit and Poodleisation of the UK

There was one of those big media events that get forgotten about almost before they finish over the last couple of days.  World leaders gathered in Biarritz for some sort of meeting.  No doubt there was a serious agenda in there somewhere and quite likely some good work was done.  But the coverage was pure soap opera, with it all to do with how the great men and women got on with each other.  And it wasn't a very good soap opera because nothing much happened.   Gossip needs a bit of fizz to make it interesting.


I doubt very much I'll even remember the event until I reread this blog post some years from now.

But there was an interesting personal interaction story I would have liked a bit more on.  Just how well does Mr Johnson get on with Mr Trump?   And how does the relationship pan out.  The traditional role of the UK prime minister is that of the US president's poodle.  There's not much can be done about that.  We are Mytlilene and they are Athens.  And just like the 5th Century as small state needs to keep friendly with its big ally.  Being a poodle is not so bad when you consider the alternatives.

But Brexit adds an interesting twist.  As we are downgrading our relationship with Europe we are naturally going to be more dependent on the US.  So we are moving deeper into poodle territory.  Now there are two ways of coping with this.  We can pretend it isn't happening and be like the impoverished aristrocrat who insists on using his title because it is all he has left.  Or we can embrace the reality and use our special relationship with the big boy to big up ourselves as his best mate.  Try to be less of a poodle and more of a rotweiler, albeit one on a leash.  I suspect that the second option won't be supported by the US, so poodle it is.

But given that Brexit is not yet a done deal, the smart tactic for Johnson was to keep that whole side of the story out of everyone's mind.  Some people support Brexit because they are harking back to the empire.   They don't want to be reminded that leaving Europe just makes us an even more supine part of another country's empire.  So I think he avoided that side of things - though to be frank I didn't follow the coverage very diligently.

The poodleisation process won't start in earnest until after we have left.