DANIEL Hannan is up to his old tricks again in the misrepresentation of Europe game, one of his party’s very favourite pastimes.

This month’s foot-in-mouth escapade centres around the now “Lord’s” Sunday Telegraph column and the declaration in the headline that “if the EU act like a hostile state, then the UK should treat it as one”.

Hannan is rather put oot by the EU for daring to want to protect the important Northern Irish protocol, as well as their debate over financial equivalence and the thorny issue of vaccine hoarding. He describes their rage as almost “elemental”; their “petulance” and resentment in the face of Old Blighty, cut adrift from the naysayers on the continent and sailing off into the sunset of success through splendid isolation.

What has nanny been sprinkling on his porridge, one wonders?

The Lord insists that such petty behaviour on the part of Brussels only forces Britain’s hand, prompting “a reappraisal of our geopolitical goals” with their insistence of adherence to international law and signed agreements. How absolutely beastly of them. It’s just not cricket. Why on earth should his party stick to the rules when it doesn’t suit them? Did he actually mean to say Johnson’s constant moving of the geopolitical goalposts, to the annoyance of not just Europe, but the international community too?

Such trifling issues do not deter Hannan. In his article, he then wades into Ireland, trying to draw parallels between the UK leaving Europe with a rather subjective analysis of the Irish fight for independence to be free of sublimation by their overlords at Westminster. He suggests that the Irish pursued almost “anti-British” policies in the aftermath of their liberation, but we all rubbed along in the end until the Troubles.

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Just don’t go there Lord Hannan. When you are the walking, talking epitome of why the Irish wanted to do their own thing historically, it’s not really your place to comment, and it certainly isn’t your place to draw flippant analogies with the gross act of self-harm that is Brexit and its accompanying chaos for our neighbouring countries.

Hannan thinks the EU is threatening the UK with “wartime measures” in their “belligerence” on the border issue, and the debacle over sharing vaccines to ensure we can tackle the global pandemic in the most effective fashion (to the benefit of everyone is a concept too far for this Tory peer). He states that such is the hostility emanating from the EU, that it is now closer on the “spectrum (of) antagonistic states” to Russia than Canada.

Is he living in Nigel Farage’s head?

Hannan’s rebranding of himself as a commentator on diplomatic relations takes quite a leap of imagination. Why?

Well, let’s recap on some of Hannan’s greatest hits:

  • Thinks the Good Friday Agreement was a failure
  • Thinks Covid is just a big scare story about nothing
  • Suggested Ukip should form a coalition with the Conservatives back in 2012
  • Chairman of “dodgy” Vote Leave campaign
  • Fan of privatisation of NHS
  • Spells “whisky” with an “e”
  • Thinks Irn Bru is a poor person’s drink of choice.

Ouch to those last two. He’s not going to score many brownie points with Scots at this rate.

So that’s Scotland, Northern Ireland and most of the EU he’s managed to insult. One shudders to think of what he makes of the Welsh or our Nordic neighbours. I’m sure he’ll be re-writing their history in due course.

In some ways, with this kind of attitude to Europe, it’s kind of ironic that Hannan has ended up in the House of Lords.

At least in this second chamber at Westminster there was some kind of fight back against the democratic aberration of the Internal Market Bill, plus these unelected peers gave Theresa May the run around when she was steering the good ship Brexit back in the day.

In another wonderful twist of fate, Hannan actually called for a grand “overhaul” of the House of Lords while he was still bothering Europe as an MEP, declaring “the current chamber, whatever the individual qualities of its members, embodies everything that is wrong with the administration of Britain. It is made up of people who can pass laws without having to justify themselves to those who must obey their laws”. To be fair, Douglas Carswell helped him write that statement in their joint book from 2008, The Plan: Twelve Months to Renew Britain, available in all bad book-bins. Still, it takes a big man to admit he was wrong – or perhaps, a big pay-check?

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Now he’s swathed in ermine, he will have plenty of time to think about the errors of his youth as he enjoys the latter part of his working years in the comfort of privilege and unaccountability.

I’d imagine, however, that such introspection is not for the likes of Hannan. He’s got better things to do, like revel in the joy of Brexit and the perpetual poking of his former colleagues in Brussels. Perhaps he needs them more than he thought.