Brexit's detractors have never had to look far for evidence that "Brexit" was an idea that consumed the imagination of cranks. Linked to this is the tendency for many of Brexit's most vocal advocates being ideologues whose interests were in a more "flexible" interpretation of the law; such as using loopholes for the purposes of aggressive tax avoidance, and a more general desire to remove state power from the interests of an unregulated private sector wherever possible: "Britannia Unchained".
Cranks
This author has written before about the dangerous attraction that Brexit has to a myriad of ideological extremists and fantastical fanatics. These are people who have their own agenda to pursue through Brexit, and typically fall in to the camp of being either libertarian ideologues, racial nationalists or far left socialists.
We only have to look at the people occupying the most significant offices of the state, and the people whose advice they rely on. Most of the key positions in the British government are occupied by ideological Libertarians (of "Britannia Unchained" fame), or are advised by them.
The main with the most significant (and unchecked) real power is Dominic Cummings (more on him later). His clarion call to attract "weirdos" into the corridors of power tells us everything about what kind of "project" Brexit Britain has become: a vehicle for radical ideological and structural change of the country, of its priorities, and its place in the world.
In a sense this "change" might all sound exciting (and the Prime Minister is a skilled purveyor of the cult of charismatic enthusiasm). A look at the kind of "weirdos" Cummings is attracting to the highest levels of government tells us something much different, however: some of these are people who don't so much think "out of the box" as think the morally unthinkable, and are happy to say it in public as well. In other words, Brexit is an idea that attracts the morally unscrupulous (more on that below), as well as giving fuel to innate prejudices, dark paranoia and loopy fantasies.
Build a bridge across a three-hundred-metre-deep, bomb-strewn stretch of ocean? Sure! Engineering flights of fancy; dreams of Britain as a eugenically-purified nation of super-intelligent go-getters (thanks to a rigorous immigration programme of only the very best and brightest while also breeding out the native degenerates). In this kind of alternative dimension of being, Britain rules the waves, not as an imperial power of old, but as an island race of technologically-advanced geniuses. These cranks have truly become drunk on their own absurd propaganda.
All that has stopped Britain from ruling the waves, apparently, has been its own lack of self-belief. Britain outside the EU can literally reach for the stars.
Crooks
Then there is the attraction that Brexit poses to another plethora of "outside actors"; foreign interests that see Brexit as a corrupt opportunity to peddle their influence at the expense of Britain's own moral standing. Given the ridiculous levels of delusion present in the highest levels of government, it's no surprise that some outside the EU are looking at post-EU Britain as a turkey ready for carving.
Outside of the EU, Britain is already in talks with China and actors in the Middle East, for example. The farrago over Huawei is only a taster of the kind of things to come, as Britain faces a world that sees Britain outside the EU as a pygmy on stilts. Britain has no serious clout to defend its own interests; in this new plane of existence, it only has the power of its own lack of self-awareness, unaware that everyone else sees itself as an emperor with no clothes.
The things that Britain has to offer the global economy are its financial industry, the related "fintech" industry, and the high regard of its education system. It is also good at making things that kill people, and is one of the world's centres for enabling tax evasion. Based on this, it is easy to see how post-EU Britain will become an ever-more nefarious magnet for providing high-end services to the globe's rogue states and criminally-minded mega-rich.
What else, after all, can Britain offer? It has nothing else that the world really wants. Think of it as Switzerland with a coastline, but one that can't even properly feed and house its own native population.
Control freaks
Presiding over this state of affairs are Boris Johnson and his key adviser, Dominic Cummings.
The "bloodbath" of ministerial restructuring that heralded Johnson's ascent to the premiership (and the more recent one that took place the day before Valentine's Day) demonstrated his ruthless application of power. While Johnson can be charismatic, he is also a control freak; the latter trait he also shares with the chief adviser he brought in with him to Downing Street, Dominic Cummings. Johnson's idea of government is far more absolutist in its internal application than any previous Prime Minister in living memory; a populist tendency he shares with Donald Trump.
The difference to the egoism mania of Trump is that Johnson and Cummings seem to have agreed some kind of mutually-beneficial "pact", where Johnson delegates certain areas of policy and strategic control to Cummings. There had been rumours (such as over the decision over HS2) that Cummings' influence had been on the wane since the election in December, but those must have been well and truly squashed by the manner of forcing the chancellor Sajid Javid's resignation after being barely seven months in the job.
Cummings' malign influence had been responsible for getting Javid's own advisers removed the previous autumn, and it is now clear that both Johnson and Cummings see the Treasury, as well as some other departments, as simply vehicles of the prime minister's own strategy: there to tell him how something can be done, not if it should be done. Ministers that disagree cannot expect to be tolerated for very long. Cummings was already seen to be behind the extraordinary expulsion of more than twenty Conservative MPs from the party whip back in September (at a time when the government was already in a precarious position in parliament).
With Johnson at the helm and Cummings at his side, theirs was a partnership of convenience, with the adviser seemingly happy to play the role of sinister villain sidekick and Johnson as the "lovable rogue". Together, they achieved a lot and ripped up as many precedents in a few short months.
In this way, Johnson has made his premiership much more about a "cult of the charismatic leader" than has been known before in British politics. Theresa May's own attempts at "control freakery" were almost comically-inept by comparison. Johnson, with Cummings' at his side, has destroyed his political adversaries in short order, leaving him as a popular leader, with near-autocratic political inclinations.
Johnson's childhood fascination with ancient Greece, you wonder, might have a large part to play in this, with its chain of famed dictators, philosophers, lunatics and tyrants. Johnson's unstable upbringing and his near-constant necessity for praise and attention, leaves him with an ego that craves a desire for approval, as well as a desire to make his mark on history; to be a "man ahead of his time". This is something that he shares with Cummings, whose own sense of grand sweep of history allows him to indulge his own grandiose view of his own intelligence.
These two men are the ones in control of Britain's immediate future. They have used their skills to seize it, in a way that would have seemed unimaginable only a year ago. There is still an open question about what they will do with their near-unstoppable power, given their low regard for those that get in their way, and what they have done with it so far.
We may soon see.
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