After a very chummy left-wing, back-patting discussion on the RMT’s strikes, James O’Brien’s interview with Mick Lynch took an unexpected turn as Remoaner-in-chief O’Brien tried getting Lynch to condemn Brexit. In light of the government taking back control of workers’ rights…
Far from shirking the confrontation, Lynch provided one of the most coherent and well-argued defences of the constitutional principles of Brexit heard in recent months, pointing out that having sovereignty over workers’ rights is no bad thing, and allows for these policies to be debated and thrashed out back home rather than in Brussels. Lynch’s Lexit logic was impeccable.
Asked if he’d still back Brexit today were there a second referendum, James O’Brien ended up looking crestfallen as the RMT boss refused to deny that he would. 1:0 to Mick…
Guido’s sure that as the likes of kitchen workers and construction workers listen to LBC whilst temperatures blow the tops off thermometers, they’ll collectively breathe a sigh of relief. At least they don’t have to sit on their arse talking a leftie stream of consciousness for £833 an hour…
UPDATE Saturday, August 13, 2022: O’Brien’s claim generated an almost universal online backlash yesterday. He now claims he was only joking. Something he had explicitly said in his musings that he was not. Watch the video and judge for yourself…
Sir Keir has finally explained why he’s spent almost 57 days in isolation since the start of the pandemic. Appearing on a live episode of the Full Disclosure podcast with James O’Brien – which Guido listened to in its entirety on your behalf – Starmer joked about his notoriously weak immune system by ‘blaming’ it on the amount of time he spends with his children:
“…This is why I keep getting COVID, you see, I actually spend time with my kids.”
A clearly pointed dig at the PM…
James O’Brien – author of “How to Be Right” and “How Not to Be Wrong” – made it seven minutes into his LBC show this morning before he made a classic error. During one of his usual self-satisfied monologues against the government he said the £2 billion per month* (he actually said week) cost of free Covid tests would be easier to swallow had the government not wasted £37 billion on test and trace:
“Having £2 billion pounds-worth of testing unfolding every single week is significant. Of course all of these are offset by the knowledge that they wasted so much money… £37 billion on the test and trace which never felt like it had landed properly”
That’s the same money, James…
*That’s not the exact figure either.
Public school bully-boy and radio host James O’Brien has clearly got bored of ‘owning’ ‘thick’ Brexiteers and instead turned its gaze towards a new target: concerned parents who want their children to return to school:
“And the problem will be, and I think we should probably get this front and centre before it happens… when there is an outbreak or god forbid even a fatality… when that happens, it’s on you mate. You can’t not agree with that, it’s true.”
Despite the subsequent pushback against his comments after they were clipped and tweeted out by LBC, O’Brien has doubled down, throwing the broadcast team under the bus saying he is “stunned by the incredibly crass way the clip was written up & promoted by @LBC”
This went even one step too far for Coronavirus alarmist-in-chief Piers Morgan:
Wow. You tell a listener the death of ANY schoolchild from covid is personally on him if he thinks (as most people do) that kids should now return to school - and now chuck your network & its social media team under the bus for tweeting accurately what you said? Shameless. https://t.co/tarQbs2J5A
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) August 24, 2020
O’Brien’s final say on the matter? To plug his book. Classy…
Yesterday’s pro-Brexit ruling in Northern Ireland thoroughly dismissed a Remainer case attempting to make No Deal illegal – by arguing it would damage the Northern Ireland peace process. In his judgement Lord Justice McCloskey thoroughly slapped down the spurious arguments that the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement hinges on membership of the European Union, or even regulatory alignment with it…
“Neither NIA 1998 nor the international treaty scheduled to the Belfast Agreement (or, for that matter, the Agreement itself) has the effect in law of requiring the continued membership of the EU on the part of the UK.
The Supreme Court was alert to this in Miller: see [129]. Furthermore, none of the sources mentioned subjects the EU 27 to conclude an Article 50 Withdrawal Agreement in any particular terms.”
“Once again, neither the Belfast Agreement nor this suite of provisions was predicated on the basis that UK membership of the EU would continue forever. Neither of them can be construed as requiring a customs Union or continued regulatory alignment. More fundamentally, there is no sufficient evidential foundation for the incompatibility asserted. There is no suggestion that the incompatibility has already materialised”
This expert ruling will come as sad news to some of Guido’s Remoaner friends, who have repeatedly, erroneously, argued that it does:
It is impossible for anyone who understands the Good Friday Agreement to believe that Northern Ireland can leave the Customs Union without breaking the treaty. Hoey is not the only one daft or deluded enough to miss this point. But this? This is a whole new level of batshittery. https://t.co/4TFQQzdnM4
— James O’Brien (@mrjamesob) December 15, 2018
The man who tells us all ‘How To Be Right’ getting it wrong…
The Good Friday Agreement is guaranteed by the EU. Without the EU and the four freedoms, without the Uk and Ireland both being in the EU, it wouldn’t have been possible. Hence why the GFA and peace are threatened by Brexit.
— David Schneider (@davidschneider) May 15, 2019
Maybe stick to comedy mate…
Ireland & UK signed the Good Friday Agreement explicitly as EU members. 3,600 deaths preceded it. If there was an easy solution they’d have found it at 36 deaths.
WE chose to undermine the agreement with no solution.
We should be ASHAMED that it’s not US insisting on the backstop— Femi (@Femi_Sorry) February 20, 2019
Spoken with such confidence, just a shame its completely inaccurate
Dublin seeks to preserve the Good Friday Agreement. London’s (and the DUP’s) choices are inconsistent with its preservation. https://t.co/I9a63XeJFt
— Jo Maugham QC (@JolyonMaugham) December 2, 2017
The Twitter Lawyer is wrong again. Awkward…