Tim McGarry: The ‘Brexiteers against Brexit’ lot are angry – here are my proposals

I’m not sure what the Russian for ‘Take Back Control’ is, but you’ve got to admit, the oligarchs really seem to have got their money’s worth.

Look, I’m not for a second suggesting that Brexit is a failure. Of course it’s not. In fact nothing screams success like needing to deploy the army so that you can get a gallon of unleaded.

Polls say 4% of UK voters think Brexit has been very successful. Coincidentally 4% is the percentage of voters who think Gerry Adams was never in the ‘Ra.

Anyway, the anti-protocol “Brexiteers against Brexit” politicians are angry. But no alternatives to scrapping the Protocol were forthcoming.

Here’s one.

Why not re-join the EU? We could call it Bre-re-enter. Or just re-join the Customs Union and the Single Market and hey presto – it’s protocolo disappearo!

If that doesn’t work for “Ragin’ Squad” then the people of Northern Ireland, who genuinely feel cut off from their kith and kin on the mainland, can easily re-create that “we’re a full part of UK” Brexit experience.

They can simply:

> 1: Syphon the petrol out of their cars and then stage a fist fight with some mates in a garage forecourt.

> 2: Go to their local supermarkets but don’t buy anything in solidarity with England’s empty shelves.

> 3: Email random Romanians begging them to come over here and drive a HGV for two months.

> 4: Find a field of fruit and vegetables and prevent people from picking them.

> 5: Write their own Christmas cracker jokes.

How about:

Question: “What’s for Christmas dinner?”

Answer: “Sovereignty!

... and the tears of Remoaners like Tim McGarry.”

THINGS ARE PICKING UP FOR A JOBBING PERFORMER:

As the Covid restrictions gradually relax, life for jobbing entertainers is finally returning to something like close to normal.

Recently I have been busier than Prince Andrew’s legal team.

On Monday evening David Hume and I were in the Linen Hall Library at the launch the library’s excellent “Ireland Divided” exhibition which marks the Centenary. The library is also running a series of top-class discussions, lectures and events on 100 years of Northern Ireland which you can book at linenhall.com.

David and I were doing our show “Happy Birthday Northern Ireland? – the long and the short of Partition” where we discuss, debate and argue about the origins and causes of Partition before the audience agree that I am right.

We invited the President of Ireland along to the show but for some reason he didn’t come. We don’t know why. The invitation was very carefully phrased. And we promised not to thank God for the border.

It’s a real pity that Michael D didn’t turn up as he is genuinely the only person in Ireland who can see eye to eye with David (* this is a joke about height by the way, not politics).

Last week David and I also won a prestigious Irish Music Rights Organisation Award for ‘Best Specialist Speech Programme’ for our BBC Radio Ulster history show The Long and the Short of It.

David and I are the co-equal, joint presenters of the show, though obviously I am the First Presenter and he is Deputy First.

The episode that won was called “Churchill and Ireland – hero or villain?” This and the entire series are available to listen to on the BBC Sounds app.

IMRO is an all-Ireland cross-border body. I am genuinely hoping that, as a protest against the Protocol, David boycotts it, and I get to keep the award.

HISTORY’S WORST BOY BAND RECORDS A VIDEO:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Unionism in crisis must be in want of an electoral pact.

Or a forum. Or maybe a United Unionist Alliance.

Last week they settled for an anti-Protocol video. To mark Ulster Day the four Unionist party leaders made a wee online film. They stood on the terrace outside Stormont looking like the worst boy band ever assembled.

I’m not sure if the un-Fab Four have agreed a name for the group yet. Can I suggest ‘Take That (Maros Sefcovic)’? Or how about ‘The Backstop Boys?’ Or maybe ‘No Direction’? ‘Old Kids on the Block’? Or how about being honest and calling themselves ‘Unionists for Fuel Shortages’?

On lead vocals, of course, was Jim “I don’t have any truck with ex-terrorists” Allister who, curiously, was standing right beside an ex-terrorist.

Jim “No Mates” Allister was joined by Jeffrey “13%” Donaldson who said that the Protocol was as catastrophic as a bi-lingual road-sign.

Meanwhile cool dude, progressive, liberal, Doug “#beattiebabes” Beattie was on the metaphorical third stool. To be fair, he at least had the good grace to look slightly scundered by the whole thing.

And Billy “No MLAs” Hutchinson was just happy to be included in the band.

The Furious Four fulminated against the Protocol while studiously avoiding mention of the B word. You know, the B word that actually caused the P word.

For Brexiteers the video was educational, in that it is the perfect illustration of the Shakespearean phrase “hoist by one’s own petard”.

The gang’s first gig was at this week’s Tory Party conference. Billy H was ditched but ably replaced by Ulster’s Uncrowned Queen of Brexit, Kate Hooey.

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