It’s only Monday morning and I am already hopping mad! There’s a despicable ruse by Johnson to take advantage of Armistice Day, and there are today’s reports of the latest attempts to betray Brexit which have me fuming and which make me think that the MSM and politicians have become totally deluded in their anti-TBP election campaign.It’s as if there never was a Remain coalition, as if there is only one Arch Remainer and his name is Nigel Farage.

These are the three prongs in the MSM’s attack on Farage and TBP: ‘advice’ from such leading lights like Daniel Hannan and Nick Timothy, a former aide to Ms May, blackmail attempts by “a friend”, that friend being Arron Banks, and reassurances from Boris Johnson. Let’s look at that one first, because this is the main argument used in the demands that TBP go back home and let the Big Boy do his job. The DM reports:

“Boris Johnson has offered an olive branch to Nigel Farage by ruling out extending the Brexit transition period beyond 2020. In the Prime Minister’s Sunday evening Twitter video he stressed that his agreement with the EU allowed him to pursue a Canada-style free trade deal with the Bloc and would be free of any political alignment.” (link)

What sort of ‘olive branch’ is that? Does Johnson think we don’t know who will sit at the other side of that negotiating table? Does he think we have never heard of M Michel Barnier, who has already warned that these negotiations will be very difficult and will take at least three years? Does Johnson really think we’ll trust him now, after he has sold NI and the DUP down the drain? That this is but a cheap election ploy and nothing else becomes clear in this next quote:

“But Mr Farage is facing calls to back down amid fears he could dash Brexit altogether if the Tories haemorrhage too many seats to the Brexit Party and allow Labour and the Liberal Democrats to succeed.” (link)

This is pathetic, especially as LabCon are trying to out-spend each other in a GE campaign which is nothing to do with Brexit, as John Curtice observes in The Times:

“One of the striking features of the campaign to date is that both the Conservatives and Labour are proposing to spend more and borrow more. It all seems a far cry from a few years ago when the emphasis was on how the deficit in the government’s finances could and should be reduced.We should not be surprised. Politicians are responding to a change in the priorities of an electorate that has gradually grown tired of austerity.” (link, paywalled)

So – not Brexit then, is it! Meanwhile, Mr Arron Banks (also here, non-paywalled) who craves being in the MSM and who has joined the Tory Party (not that the various reporters mention that little fact) makes this threat:

“In a warning shot, Arron Banks […] told residents of three constituencies in Stoke-on-Trent to vote Tory. Unless the Brexit Party leader stands down in most constituencies before Friday, Mr Banks’s Leave.EU group will release a tactical voting app showing Brexiteers who they should back in every seat. A spokesman for Leave.EU, which accuses Mr Farage of risking Brexit by splitting the Leave vote, said: “This app is ‘back Brexit, back Boris’. We will tell Brexiteers the right candidates to back for Brexit. If that is against the Brexit Party then so be it. We have to get Boris a majority so we can get Brexit done.” (link, paywalled)

An App telling people to ‘vote Tory’ … so transparent! It couldn’t be more obvious: this is Party Political propaganda for the Tories, it’s not about Brexit. Else why isn’t there an App by Banks and others about how best to vote against Remain candidates?

Moreover, there’s the unprecedented campaign in the DM – their report isn’t paywalled, do take a look – where they’ve published the email addresses of confirmed Brexit Party PPCs, exhorting their readers to write to them to stand down. I am not aware of similar DM campaigns to exhort MPs not to vote for e.g. the Benn Surrender act … 

Meanwhile the Tory Brexit Judas Goat Daniel Hannan is using the slur which has been spread on social Media, namely that TBP is ‘preventing Brexit’ so Farage and their MEPs can stay in Brussels earning shedloads of money:

“Why, at the moment when Brexit is about to be delivered, is something called “the Brexit Party” fighting an election at all? That party cannot deliver Brexit, but could yet prevent it. While that might suit some Brexit Party MEPs, who are enjoying the attention and the expenses, it surely can’t be what most Eurosceptics want.” (paywalled link)

Never mind that ‘something called TBP’ won the EU elections, thus getting Ms May to resign! Never mind that Johnson saying his deal will deliver Brexit doesn’t make it so. Then Hannan states that TBP can’t win and why rejecting an alliance is the proper way forward:

“On current numbers, according to Electoral Calculus, if the Brexit Party contests every constituency, it will fail to win any MPs, but it will forestall a Conservative majority […] The Brexit Party is not in a position to win seats, and the sorts of constituency where it is keenest to stand are precisely those which the Conservatives might take from Labour.”  (paywalled link)

Ah – so these are seats the Tories ‘might’ take from Labour – not will, ‘might’! Would Hannan and ‘friends’ rather see a Remain Labour win, should TBP stand down, than see TBP elected into the hallowed HoC? Finally, Hannan has the audacity to write:

“I had hoped that the Brexit Party would, to borrow Farage’s favourite phrase, “put country before party”. But it looks as though he would rather lose Brexit than see it delivered by someone else. Like the Remainers, he is now paradoxically depending on Leavers being too dim to see their own interests. I suspect that, like the Remainers, he is wrong.” (paywalled link)

What about Tories putting country before party? Furthermore, given our past experiences with Ms May and Johnson, why would Leavers suddenly think it’s in our interest to vote Tory?

No, Mr Hannan – we’re not dim, we can see where you are coming from! Nick Timothy – a failed PPC whose candidacy was rejected by a Tory constituency – comes up with the same old cr*p: Leavers must believe Johnson because he’s no Remainer … because he lead the Leave campaign. Also, his cabinet and the ERG support his wonderful Deal so it must be good and Farage is wrong:

“Examine Farage’s arguments, and it becomes quickly apparent that they are fatuous.The Brexit Party claims the new Withdrawal Agreement means “Britain remains under EU rules, but with no vote, no voice [and] no veto.” But this is true only during the transition period, which is due to end in December 2020. From that point, a new trade agreement will govern the relationship between Britain and the EU.” (paywalled link)

He trusts the EU to negotiate in good faith? How … naive! As I mentioned above: it is not in Johnson’s power to determine how long that transition period will last. M Barnier has already made warning noises, warnings which, given our experience these past years, we certainly ought to take seriously! 

Finally, for Armistice Day Johnson is going to announce ‘measures’ about ending the persecution of Veterans – see non-paywalled reports here and here. We all know what ‘manifesto pledges’ are worth. Worse – those mighty Tory minds seem to think that this is possible while we’re still in the Transition Period.

Do they not know that we will still be under the jurisdiction of the ECJ? This is another and quite disgusting party political trick. The Tories could have stopped these trials a long time ago using the argument they now propose, that this legislation should not be applied retroactively. Why didn’t they? Something to do with the ECJ, perhaps?

To campaign on this day of all days by dangling such manifesto promise in front of our veterans is sickening, but it’s all part of the same ruse: vote BoJo for the oven-ready “Deal” and prevent Farage’s Brexit Party getting into the HoC. Are the Tories scared of TBP by any chance?

Now you know why I’m fuming, first thing on this Monday morning – and now you know why we simply have to

 

KBO!

 

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