Irish Examiner view: Boris's fantasy land

Some British media serve up a fantastical worldview that's as wayward as the outlook of the country's prime minister

The 'Daily Express', centre, seems to specialise in screaming fantastical fiction — about the Northern Ireland Protocol among other things — apparently in support of the current Tory government.

If anyone wonders why so many people in Britain appear to support their government’s view of Brexit and, in particular, the Northern Ireland protocol it agreed to, they need only glance at the fantastical headlines in one of the more notorious of the British tabloids.

‘Brexit: Frost’s Article 16 masterstroke pays off! Now Coveney admits EU ready to cave’, screamed the Daily Express headline, followed by: ‘Brexit ‘UNDONE’! Varadkar sent into fresh panic — Frost sparks EU meltdown over Article 16’. 

Best (or worst) of all is the newspaper’s headline based on one reader’s comment that Ireland is about to leave the EU: ‘Irexit is coming! Britons jubilant as EU states buckle under UK economic pressure’.

Considering such fantasies, it is little wonder that, although his popularity as prime minister is waning, there is an acceptance in Britain of Boris Johnson’s assertion that overriding parts of the Brexit deal with the EU would be “perfectly legitimate”. 

His assessment of what is and what is not legitimate is questionable, to say the least, given that he tells more lies than the Daily Express.