Well! Isn’t that amazing! The EU is producing one of their famous marathon sessions and our MSM barely mention it! It’s the second EU summit where the leaders of the EU member states decide who the Juncker replacement is going to be, together with other replacements like the president of the EU Parliament.
We mentioned on Saturday that on the fringes of the G20 Meeting in Osaka the French PM Macron, the Dutch PM Rutte and the Spanish PM Sanchez had ganged up on Ms Merkel whose preferred candidate, Mr Martin Weber, then resigned his candidature. It ought to have been plain sailing yesterday in Brussels, but no. That was too much to expect.
Here is a reasonable albeit rather anodyne report, giving the bare bones. The Times has a paywalled report which is similarly uninformative while The Express gives more background details (here).
The MSM’s general attitude seems to be: why should we care since we’ll be out on the 31st of October, won’t we – it’s now just stuff happening on The Continent. Still, these will be the top people with whom our May Successor will have to deal, so let’s look at what a top German paper reports. Here’s the link, you’ll need a machine translator.
In Osaka, the four PMs (Merkel, Macron, Rutte, Sanchez) seem to have tentatively agreed to give the Juncker seat to the Dutch Social Democrat Frans Timmermans. Back in Brussels, that proposal was so divisive that the meeting yesterday started after a delay of three hours, and then broke up after an hour and a half, because the various EU PMs wanted to negotiate in private sessions, one-to-one.
Since 4am this morning, Mr Tusk has been holding talks with that ‘gang of four’. There’s coffee and croissants, so they won’t starve. From 7 am the full summit will meet again. The outcome will indeed be very interesting because not just the Visegrad group but also our friend the Taoiseach is viscerally against Mr Timmermans.
M Macron is fence-sitting on three fences. He might support Timmermans, he might support Ms Vestager but his preferred candidate is of course a certain M Barnier. Since other posts also need to be filled – a German is supposed to replace Signor Draghi at the ECB, for example – the horsetrading will be fierce. According to that German paper, our lame-duck PM meanwhile was watching cricket … I hope that the ‘Brussels correspondents’ of our esteemed MSM will be able to talk to their sources while this is going on.
The DT correspondent, needing to fill the space planned for the EU summit report, published instead a ridiculous ‘Project Fear’ article, according to which British trucks will have to wait at Dover before the French or Dutch will allow them in (paywalled link).
Turns out that the only obstacle is a lack of proper paper work. Instead of wailing about the sky falling because of Brexit perhaps the various industry leaders ought to tell their members to effing well go and prepare for it? Savour the concluding paragraphs of this report:
“Mr Burnett [Hauliers] said businesses were failing to prepare because of the uncertainty and mixed signals being sent by government, with Boris Johnson warning of no deal one day, and then saying it was a “one in a million” chance the next. A lack of customs and forwarding agents were also causing major concerns, since the private sector was not investing on the off-chance of a no deal, raising the question of whether the government would need to step in to support business. “The real problem is that even if businesses all rushed to register, a lot of businesses also just don’t understand the processes and what they need to do to get ready,” he concluded.” (paywalled link)
You couldn’t make it up: three years gone and this unpreparedness is the fault of everybody else, especially Boris Johnson – and of the businesses themselves because, just as we Leave voters, they ‘don’t understand’. Well, that’s what happens when the hard-core Remain ‘business leaders’ refuse to even contemplate that Brexit will come, never mind preparing their members for it.
Next – it gives me great pleasure to show you how our MSM work, how they don’t do proper research, and how the broadsheets copy from each other. As some of you may recall, yesterday TBP held a huge rally in Birmingham. There’s a report in the Daily Mail which is quite factual and was therefore disregarded by the broadsheets. The DM report was published at 16:30, 30 June 2019 and updated at 22:30, 30 June 2019. Keep this timeline in mind.
In the DT, we find a (paywalled) report with this title: “Nigel Farage faces questions after refusing to identify 100 new prospective Brexit Party MPs”. That report was published at 9.07pm, June 30th. Remember that time.
The author fulminates:
“Nigel Farage faced questions on Sunday night after he unveiled 100 new prospective MPs for the Brexit Party but refused to name any of the candidates. Just 49 days after forming the party a selected group of its newest prospective parliamentary candidates attended Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre with the sort of razzmatazz more usually seen at a concert than a political rally. In front of a 5,000-strong crowd, the would-be MPs took to the stage as the booming sounds of High Hopes, by Indy rock band Panic At The Disco, played overhead. But in a bizarre move that will raise questions about the Party’s readiness to fight a general election, Mr Farage and his staff refused point-blank to say who any of them were. The audience was told that among those stood before them was a fork lift truck driver, civil engineers and teachers. There were also 26 entrepreneurs, five Tory councillors, two people in showbiz and two UKIP councillors. Yet not a single name.” (paywalled link)
Terrible, innit! The reporter doesn’t make it clear if she asked at a press conference before or after that rally. Instead, she insinuates that not naming those 100 candidates at a rally, run on a tight schedule, is a veritable crime.
And lo and behold, RemainCentral picks this up … Their headline is (paywalled): “Nigel Farage shows off Brexit Party candidates (whoever they are)”. Now look at the time this report was published: July 1st, 12.01am. This is original reporting? Here’s a quote:
“Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party paraded more than 100 general election candidates at a rally yesterday but refused to say who they were. The men and women, who, the party said included economists and forklift truck drivers, appeared behind Mr Farage at a glitzy rally in Birmingham complete with fireworks. The Brexit Party leader told the crowd, which organisers said was made up of 5,000 supporters, to prepare for a potential election this autumn. However, the party declined to name its new candidates last night. A spokesman denied that the secrecy was down to concerns over their social media history, insisting that they had all been vetted.” (link, paywalled)
It couldn’t be more obvious: the establishment MSM demand to know who the candidates are because they themselves (and of course the activists of LabCon) want to have sufficient time to dig up spurious dirt right now, because TBP can’t be trusted.
The broadsheets have copied this one point from each other, as the timeline shows: The DM report (disregarded) was out at 16.30, while the DT, at 9.07, was copied by The Times, published at 12.01.
I’ll close with two Brexit News. One is about the prospective ‘Brexit teams’ of the BoJo-Hunt campaigns. Mr Hunt wanted the former Canadian PM Stephen Harper to lead his Brexit team but was rebuffed. Mr Harper said he preferred to be neutral. On BoJo’s team will be Jacob Rees-Mogg, together with Mr Cox, the Attorney General of the mellifluous, booming voice, and the current DexEU Minister, Mr Barclay (here). I think that can be filed under having people inside the tent pissing out rather than the other way round.
There’s been another development which is … astonishing. Mr Gavin Williamson, former MoD chief and former chief whip, has now been ‘cleared’ of his alleged misdeed of leaking and can return to the Cabinet. Do read the whole thing here, taking special note of the last paragraphs!
We do live in interesting times. I look forward to reports from that EU Summit, with details of how much blood was spilled on the floor. Meanwhile, don’t trust the MSM, don’t trust the establishment Parties, and
KBO!
FYI – FRESH FROM BRUSSELS:
That marathon horse-trading session of the EU Leaders to distribute the ‘prizes’ for the next five years has broken up again and the poor things will meet again tomorrow …
Words fail me …!
Where’s Radar when you need him (Mash).
There was nothing to prevent TBP from releasing the names of their ppcs whom they paraded from their platform and Vic Evans knows it: the MSM do have a point.
That obviously wasn’t the priority. Did Kylie* announce the dates and venues of her upcoming tours in the middle of her Glastonbury set? Of course not. People who expected that are deliberately missing the point of what a performance is all about.
Still, it’s revealing of the panic setting in among the political class. Posting this from a railway station in Dad’s Army country, I can’t resist the apposite quote:they don’t like it up ’em.
JF
*I’m down wiv derkidz innit. Like John Snow and Tom Watson.
Vic Evans?
From comments made elsewhere on ID today by Stuart Johnson, there appears to be a comprehensive vetting arrangement in place for TBP candidates so there should be no dirt to dig up besides which they cannot hide forever. There may be legitimate reasons for not revealing names at this point but I cannot offhand think of any, and if you wish to parade your candidates as the ones that will make the difference surely it is in the public interest to know who they are.
I believe that’s a typo and ‘Viv evans’ was mean’t.
I’ll ask this question though: why the assumption that the MSM have ‘a legitimate reason’ to insist on knowing names when told explicitly they’re not forthcoming at this time?
“Public interest” would be reasonable if a GE had just been called, but as it isn’t, and as we’re all aware of harassment online and worse by activists from the left spectrum, surely not providing names right now is acceptable?
I can hear the next question already: ‘why parade the candidates then in the first place’? Because, perhaps, else the dear MSM would’ve cried that those candidates are all a figment of TBP’s imagination?
It seems to me that the MSM have taken it upon themselves to be the sole arbiters of who and what is acceptable in political life and inside the political parties. We all recall the dirt-digging campaign against local UKIP candidates in 2014 and 2915. Remember that bloke who was alleged to’ve given the Hitler salute and who was instantly removed from the list? Turned out he had been pointing at a flower vase.
Never trust the MSM – you’ve all noticed, I hope, how they’ve been reporting in the Labour anti-semitic candidates, for example. And these are the same MSM who some seem to think are right in demanding names …
I see the media are still peddling this lie about The Brexit Party: “Just 49 days after forming the party…”
Unless this TBP is not the same as the one formed by Catherine Blaiklock in November last year?
As I have said before, if TBP can’t be truthful about its origins, what else are they not being truthful about?
The Telegraph is strange at the moment. It may be that they actually know what they are reporting, but, as one example, the idea that our flexible friend Call Me Matt is part of the negotiating team fighting our battle against the EU seems incredible. Is BJ so short of support that he needs such inconstant support? He might as well recruit Gove and get a full house of traitors.
JF
Interesting how Sedwill’s beliefs turn on a sixpence; new master in prospect, adjust to suitable new opinion. Er, yeees, Prime Minister.
That’s why he’s the Top Mandarin … flexibility is a must …
Not so much flexible as floppy.
JF
Being able to do proper flip-flops while hiding the evidence for ‘flips’ is also a necessity for a proper Top Mandarin!
I don’t understand all this talk about small oranges, but is it not the case that these small oranges are public servants and as such are expected to obey their masters, and that the best of them will anticipate their master’s wishes before they are articulated?