IN Squinter’s continuing series of articles attempting to make sense of our current travails, he’s been talking to a senior DUP figure over the weekend controversy that brought the twin crises of Covid and Brexit together with a bang.

- So you’re angry that the EU invoked Article 16 in an effort to sort out its Covid vaccine difficulties? - Angry? Absolutely bloody rippin’ it.

- So why do you think the EU decided to do it? - Because it’s an unelected cabal of globalists that wants to return us to a state of slavery and serfdom.

- Was it not because it was concerned that the island of Ireland could become a back door for vaccines made in the EU to reach the UK without controls? - That might be what they said, but we all know that Ursula Barnier and Guy Van der Leyen despise us because we won the war.

- What war? - All of them.

- They were very quick to reverse their decision, weren’t they? - Under pressure from Carla Lockhart and Sammy Wilson, yes.

- Was it not the Irish government that told them to catch themselves on? - No, no. I think you’ll find that it was Carla on U105 and Sammy on Facebook that brought them to their senses.

- So, tell me, why do you think triggering Article 16 is a bad idea? - Well, to quote Arlene at the weekend it was “an incredible act of hostility”. The EU said it didn’t want a hard border in Ireland and yet at the sound of the first shot they put a hard border in Ireland. - Except they didn’t, did they?

- They were going to. - And they changed their mind very quickly. - Shows you how little their judgment can be trusted.

- Tell me, can you think of any other difficulties we’re facing that might not have happened had people here changed their minds? - I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. - Of course you don’t.

- When Arlene spoke to Boris Johnson and Michael Gove on Friday evening she called for a “robust response” from the UK. - Just right, too.

- A robust response to something that didn’t happen? - Something that nearly happened.

- What would a robust response to the EU’s actions look like?  - Oh, let’s see now, a gunboat off Le Havre? Boots on the ground in the Hook of Holland? A leaflet drop on Berlin? 

- You guys weren’t too happy when the supermarket shelves started to go bare this month, were you? - Correct.

- So what did the party ask the British government to do about it? - Write a stiff letter to Brussels? - Nope. - Ban frogs’ legs and smelly cheese?

- Arlene and Carla and Ian all called for Article 16 to be invoked. - They did? - They did. - Well, that was different. - In what way?

- Some people have short memories. Remember how it felt in mid-November when you couldn’t get a scallion or a banana in Asda?

- So fruit and veg are more important than life-saving vaccines? - Don’t be silly. We couldn’t get packet salads and brown sauce either and Sainsbury’s were selling Spar bacon, for flip’s sake.

- So the EU thinking about Article 16 and not doing it is worse than the DUP demanding it weeks before? - Much worse. 

- How so? - Well, they’re European and we’re British, obvs.

- British, but you’re not allowed to import British soil? Bit weird that, isn’t it? - Maybe. But that’ll change when we get Article 16 done.

- You do know that if the UK invokes Article 16 then the EU is entitled under the Withdrawal Agreement to take ‘rebalancing’ measures, don’t you? - Of course.

- What rebalancing measures do you think they might take? - No idea.

- Do you not think you should maybe have an idea before you press the button? - Like, plan for eventualities before we do something?

- Exactly. - Mate, we went for Brexit, why would we start doing that now? - Fair point.

Funeral turn-out statistics

CONSPIRACY THEORIST: Marjorie Taylor Greene in a CNN report
2Gallery

CONSPIRACY THEORIST: Marjorie Taylor Greene in a CNN report

Trope dope shoots off a space ray

THE phrase ‘Jewish space ray’ has been trending on Twitter, which is no big deal because on social media all sorts of weird and whacky things raise their head from time to time. The reason it was trending was because a newly-elected Republican Congresswoman from Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene, has been outed as, um, let’s see now, what’s the best way to put this? A complete whacko? Yeah, that’ll do.

Briefly, Taylor Greene is a subscriber to the QAnon belief that Washington is run by a cabal of Democrat paedophiles who take blood from their victims to make a youth serum. The cabal includes Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and the man destined to save the United States from this satanic cult is Donald Trump.

Taylor Greene also believes that notorious mass shootings in the US have been either false flag operations conducted by proponents of gun control, or simply didn’t happen. She has stalked survivors of school shootings shouting abusive accusations at them in the street.

Yes, very good, you cry, but what about the Jewish space ray? Well, Taylor Greene believes that last year’s devastating Californian wildfires were deliberately started by another cabal – this one industrial and financial – to clear the way for a lucrative high-speed railway across the state. They started the fires using a heat ray fired from space.

Yes, you cry again, but where’s the Jewish bit? That comes when Taylor Greene alleges that the biggest financial backer of the heat ray is the Rothschild family, which immediately qualifies her as a rampant anti-semite because for a century and more the name Rothschild has been routinely used by extremists and haters to advance the idea that Jews are conspiring to rule the world through dark money.

Democrats are already exploring ways to have Taylor Greene removed from office and even similarly unhinged Republican colleagues have been stunned into silence because in a world which in the past five years has shown that there’s almost nothing that can disqualify you from high office, anti-semitic tropes remain a bridge too far. 

Except that they don’t. Or at least, some of them don’t. Because it’s still perfectly acceptable to replace the name Rothschild with George Soros and get away with it. Soros is a fabulously wealthy Jewish financier and philanthropist who the alt-right in the US, the UK and Ireland routinely blame on financing everything that they despise. They claim he has variously financed the anti-Brexit movement, Antifa and Black Lives Matter. It is claimed that Soros financed the Charlottesville Nazi rally and the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre as false flag operations to discredit the right. Donald Trump accused Soros of financing the Mexico ‘migrant caravan’ as a means of destabilising the US. Nigel Farage described Soros as being “in many ways the biggest danger to the entire western world”. Jacob Rees Mogg said Soros was “the Remoaner funder-in-chief”. Tory MPs who were found to have posted Soros tropes online were required to undergo training sessions on recognising Jew-hate but kept their jobs.

It’s a simple statement of fact to say that if any of these people had used the name Rothschild instead of Soros their feet wouldn’t have touched the ground. Which begs the question, how come the Soros trope is acceptable and the Rothschild one isn’t? How come Jewish dark money conspiracy theories are a no-go area in politics, except when the alleged dark money is coming from George Soros. And how come the most notorious ‘anti-semite’ in the UK is Jeremy Corbyn, a guy who has never uttered an anti-Jewish word or posted an anti-semitic trope in his life?