THEY have been dismissed by their own party as fantasists, but now the Tories behind the idea for a new Royal Yacht even have a name for their £100m dream boat.
One can only wonder how Her Majesty the Queen will feel when she hears that Project “Brexit-annia” is being planned to replace the Royal Yacht Britannia that she so loved over its decades of service.
SNP MP Mhairi Black was appalled to hear the news: “They can’t get Brexit on the slipway, never mind launched, and now they want a new royal yacht to boast about post-Brexit Britain? They are completely delusional.”
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The Daily Telegraph, which has been campaigning for the new royal yacht after dismally failing to get the old one re-commissioned – it’s happily berthed in Leith and doing very well as a tourist attraction – broke the story that Jake Berry MP, Minister for the so-called Northern Powerhouse, had held talks with Liam Fox, Secretary of State for International Trade, about a new royal yacht.
The Telegraph said Berry and Fox had talked about “Brexit-annia” to be built by private money – funnily enough, no one has yet openly put up a single pound of the estimated £100m cost — to showcase the “best of Britain” as well as acting as a floating palace for the Royal Family.
Who is to pay the running costs and whether the new yacht will be part of the Royal Navy like the Royal Yacht Britannia — crewed by 21 officers, 250 Royal Yachtsmen and a platoon of the Royal Marines — has not been revealed by Berry, Fox or Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson who loves the idea of a new Royal Yacht.
In March, Johnson said: “It is my view that it would indeed add greatly to the soft power of this country, a soft power which is already very considerable. The new Britannia should not be a call on the taxpayer, if it can be done privately I am sure it would attract overwhelming support.”
Berry, too, yesterday spoke of displaying “the soft power of our nation around the world” and added: “It would be a fantastic opportunity to show the best of British manufacturing on a global scale.
“Anything we can do to support the conception of global Britain, do free trade deals, support businesses across the north of England and elsewhere, I do think we should give consideration to.”
In the same interview, Berry claimed business leaders in the north of England were sick of “London-centric whinging about Brexit” – that will be London which, like Scotland, voted against Brexit…
The royal yacht fantasy is already one of the many reasons for differences between the “Torykips” such as Johnson and Fox and the rest of the Cabinet who want a proper trade deal out of Brexit.
Prime Minister Theresa May showed what she thought of the latest nonsense when her spokesperson said yesterday: “There are no plans for a new (royal) yacht and it is not on our agenda.”
Mhairi Black was outraged that ministers had even spent valuable time discussing their £100m fantasy in the week that it was announced that people seeking Universal Credit would be charged 55p per minute to use a Government helpline.
She told The National: “This is just the latest example of the delusional, egotistical imaginary version of Brexit and Britain that these people have. It shows how absolutely out of touch they are.
“What does it say about them if their priority is a masculine show of ego instead of dealing with the fact that some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in our society can’t even afford to phone up for help in order to get enough to get by.
“Yet again they are showing why Scotland will be better off voting Yes in the next referendum.”
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