“B-Day” has finally arrived. At 11pm today we’re Out. We’re a free country – free-ish, that is, because from tomorrow onwards we enter the Transition Period where we will still pay EU Danegeld and still have to take their rules. But as it says in the Bible (Matthew 6:34, if you want to check): ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof’, so today we’ll celebrate regardless of some ‘EU evil’, reported even on this day. 

The headlines this morning are all about what Johnson will say tonight. Thank you very much, MSM, for informing us ahead of the event – we can now celebrate without having to stare at our tellies in expectation. But don’t think that finally, just for this one day, Remain or indeed the EU and M Barnier, have been quiet!

There are, for example, the snide remarks from arch-Remainers who don’t even notice that they use the truth to smear us with. Just look at the summary of an opinion piece in RemainCentral: 

“Leavers know they can’t be proved wrong if the measure of success is freedom from the yoke rather than economic gain” (paywalled link)

Yes indeed – that was the whole point why we voted Leave, notwithstanding the powerful Remainers in politics, industry, banking and the MSM who have been trying for four years to make this about ‘the economy’! I quote this final smear in that opinion piece simply as evidence for the implacable mindset of Remain, contradicting their demands for ‘healing the division’:

“Brexit has been a pathetic spectacle which has encouraged and stoked the worst in British politics. It will be a pleasure to see the back of it. That much, at least, is a trivial kind of liberation.” (paywalled link)

Words fail me! You Remainers stoked the ‘worst in British politics’. Translated, this means: ‘go back to your hovels, peasants! Shut up so we Westminster Bubble denizens can get on with things without your interference’. 

Obviously, RemainCentral couldn’t leave it at that. In their editorial for today they inadvertently drop their mask of superiority, demonstrating that the atmosphere in that Westminster Bubble must have a detrimental effect on the memory of its inhabitants:

“At a time when economic growth in Europe lagged the rest of the world, Leave prevailed with a simple promise to “take back control”.” (link, paywalled)

For the umpteenth time: ‘taking back control’ was not about the economy! It was Remain who insisted that Leave meant we were voting to become poorer – at a time when Remain, as they now seem to concede, meant to stay with a worsening economy. Remain knows that they’re wrong, as the concluding sentences in that editorial shows:

“And if it all goes wrong, our politicians will never again be able to blame the EU. That in itself is a blessing.” (link, paywalled)

Just so! That’s the point of taking back control: that we can send politicians packing! ‘Taking back control’ meant that we no longer wanted to be ruled by an unelected, unaccountable, self-appointed elite. The Remainers know this full well, and no amount of their propaganda can hide the fact.

As for M Barnier and the EU … Firstly, there’s an unspeakably smarmy letter by Ms vdLeyen, M Charles Michel and Signor David Sassoli, published – where else! – in The Times. They tell us that ‘we in the EU will make Brexit work’  because obviously we can’t do this ourselves! Frankly, when I read this I felt nauseated:

“Our thoughts are with all of those who have helped to make the EU what it is today. Those who are concerned about their future or disappointed to see the UK leave. Those British members of our institutions who helped to shape policies that made lives better for millions of Europeans. We will think of the UK and its people, their creativity, ingenuity, culture, and traditions, that have been a vital part of our union’s tapestry.” (link, paywalled)

This reads like a condolence letter, as if we’ve already died. It is a welcome sign though – as if we needed yet another one! – of how Brussels speaks with forked tongues. There are for example two reports in the DT, by their Brussels correspondent (Remain). First and foremost, the inevitable Michel:

“The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator is expected to warn Mr Johnson that there is no chance of striking a zero-quota, zero-tariff trade deal unless Britain promises to stick to EU standards after the transition period finishes at the end of 2020. Mr Barnier will set out the European Commission’s draft negotiating mandate for the trade talks in Brussels on Monday, the very day that Mr Johnson is expected to make a major speech setting out his red lines for the UK-EU relationship.” (paywalled link)

Can’t wait, can Michel, to show us benighted Leavers who is still ‘the boss’! I note in passing that M Barnier is trying to give the impression that the EU is very eager to start negotiating when we all know by now that any talks will only start four weeks later, on March 3rd. There’s another report in the DT, on how three EU countries have jumped the gun:

“European fugitives could escape British justice by fleeing home after three EU countries refused to extradite their nationals to the UK during the 11-month Brexit transition period. […] Germany, Austria and Slovenia have laws that forbid the extradition of their citizens to non-EU member states, which the United Kingdom will formally become at 11pm on Friday.  The Telegraph has learned the three government have written to the EU, outlining their plans.” (paywalled link)

Germany to the fore – what a surprise! Can we now say that Germany is happy to shelter criminals, because: ‘Rulz’? In any case, don’t worry:

“Brussels and London hope to sign a replacement extradition agreement but those talks will take place in the transition period when the three countries will refuse to extradite their nationals.” (paywalled link)

That’s reassuring, innit! It’s even more reassuring (not!) when we read the following in a report this morning, on the NI negotiations which took place last October, prefaced with the three little words ‘behind the scenes’:

“For three days in October Britain and the European Union stared into the abyss of a no-deal Brexit. The crisis had been triggered by a call between Angela Merkel and the prime minister. Boris Johnson [..] had agreed to demands for Northern Ireland to align with the single market, and was hoping that the chancellor would cut him some slack. Despite the British compromise […] the EU refused to budge. Mr Johnson had not offered enough, Mrs Merkel said. […] The conversation was bad tempered and, in a break with protocol, Downing Street went public. Officials briefed journalists that Mrs Merkel’s position meant that a Brexit deal was “essentially impossible, not just now but ever”. Mrs Merkel was accused of being prepared to “torpedo the Good Friday agreement” and put peace at risk.” (link, paywalled)

Funny – I can’t remember that the journalists thus briefed went public with those accusations of Ms Merkel. I do remember that the Remain HoC went into overdrive about preventing ‘No Deal’. Had they been briefed, perchance?

The point here is that Ms Merkel, Empress of the EU, was again not prepared to give an inch – just as she didn’t give an inch when Cameron begged for something, anything, to prevent having to give us that EU Referendum. Did she think that the Remain HoC would force Johnson to concede?

This report, well ‘after the fact’, shows also how journalists are prepared to sit on important news when these news would torpedo their remit – in this case, to Remain. That’s not going to strengthen our trust in the MSM, is it!

Moreover, our trust in journalists isn’t going to grow when we find an opinion piece in RemainCentral, published today, with the title “Brexit Day is historic — only the Reformation compares” (link, paywalled) where the author, Ben Macintyre, does not refer with one word to Nigel Farage’s observations on just that point, observations made in an interview on the 29th of this month, quoted yesterday, here, in our column. 

And finally, The Express has dug up a quote by Clement Attlee which is worth remembering amongst all those ‘historical reminiscences’ telling us peasants who all was always against the EU, now that it’s Brexit Day:

“Throughout the years, though, Mr Attlee remained a eurosceptic. In the Sixties, he reportedly told one newspaper that he was not keen on the Common Market. He said: “After all, we beat Germany and we beat Italy and we saved France and Belgium and Holland. I never see why we should go crawling to them. We are asked to join the Six. The Six. I seem to remember that we spent a lot of blood and treasure during the War rescuing four of them from the other two.” (link)

Today, we Leavers are officially not gloating while we can and will ‘gloat like hell’ in private, as a certain Mr Whitelaw said. But we’d rather remember those words by Mr Attlee, especially when we read that smarmy letter from the EU.

Now let’s go and celebrate even though we know that Brexit won’t be done properly until the 31st of December!

CHEERS – AND KBO ANYWAY!