“The Hospital of Bethlem (Bedlam) at Moorfields, London”

 

It’s Monday morning and we’re back in the political madhouse. Yesterday, as customary, the political Z-list ‘celebrities’ were invited to take to the airwaves and tell us about ‘their Brexit’. Yawn – we’ve heard it all before: it was about themselves, their personal position in their establishment Remain Parties, and scuppering Brexit.

To crown it all, the PM wrote an article published yesterday in RemainCentral, The Sunday Times (link, paywalled). It’s title is “Brexit: My Withdrawal Agreement Bill will be a bold new offer to MPs”. It’s nothing more than a last desperate attempt to make people vote for her derelict Party in the EP elections this coming Thursday.

Why she thinks that we voting plebs would now dutifully vote ‘Remain’ on Thursday and perhaps even tell her Remain MPs to support her because: “Ms May before Party before Country” – that is her secret.

The PM’s article serves to reinforce my suspicion mentioned in my Brexit-Betrayal column on Saturday, namely that her Mandarin handlers seem to have given up on her and have left her dangling. It’s a Party Political re-branding exercise, unworthy of a PM. The fine hand of the Remain Mandarins is absent.

Of course, she still has her Tory Party handlers who are now desperate to hold onto their own jobs … Thus the article in today’s (paywalled) DT, reporting that there’s nothing new in the PM’s ‘bold’ proposal is not a surprise:

“The Prime Minister announced on Sunday that the Withdrawal Agreement Bill – the legislation needed for Britain to leave the EU with a deal – would “represent a new, bold offer to MPs across the House of Commons, with an improved package of measures that I believe can win new support”. But a five-page summary of the Bill sent to Cabinet ministers last week contained no ideas on how to bridge the gap between the Tories and Labour on a possible customs union with the EU, and no fresh thinking on the Northern Irish backstop. (paywalled link)

The details as reported in the DT serve very well to illustrate the desperation now prevailing in the PM’s ‘inner circle’:

“Instead, it promises to incorporate an idea first proposed by the Tory MP Sir Hugo Swire in January that would give Parliament the final say on implementing the backstop, as well as an obligation for the Government to “seek” alternative arrangements to the backstop by the end of 2020. It would also incorporate an amendment first proposed to the third “meaningful vote” in March by the Labour MPs Lisa Nandy and Gareth Snell, which would give Parliament a say in what the objectives of future trade negotiations should be.” (paywalled link)

Articles in this morning’s MSM (here, here, and here) simply have copied the DT’s report.

Some Tory MPs seemed to have been aware already that the PM’s article yesterday was hogwash, as their reactions indicate:

“Sir Bill Cash, the Brexiteer Tory MP who has consistently voted against Mrs May’s deal, said: “This is pretty cosmetic stuff. It will not have any effect on Leave-supporting MPs and in fact there are votes coming back to our side from people who backed the deal last time.” David Davis, the former Brexit Secretary, told LBC radio that he would be voting against the Bill at the first opportunity to prevent MPs trying to pass amendments that would tie Britain into a customs union or a second referendum. Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP chief whip whose party has said it will vote against the Bill, said: “The difficulty remains for us that the backstop is still incorporated into the legislation. As things stand our position remains unchanged.” A Whitehall source who has read the summary given to ministers said: “There is nothing new in this at all. It is simply a retread of old ideas.” (paywalled link)

Sir John Redwood had this rather prophetic entry in his Diary on Saturday:

“Will Mrs May really ask us to vote for a fourth time on this unpopular Treaty by bringing forward the Bill to ratify it? She says they will. Why then does she  not publish it so we can talk about it properly? Is it so bad it must be kept secret?” (link)

I’m sure he and all of us will be astonished (not!) to read this morning:

“Downing Street said the details of the Withdrawal Agreement Bill had not yet been finalised.” (paywalled link)

The PM, in ‘bold’ words, has thus asked the Nation to get their MPs to vote for her “Brexit” which hasn’t even been ’finalised’, whatever that means. We’re in tinpot dictatorship country!

The Irish Foreign Secretary reminded all the warring MPs, all the way up to the PM, that the EU will not renegotiate (link). It is surpassingly strange that this stark fact still seems to have escaped all our MPs, right up to the PM. He warned that we could get a No-Deal Brexit ‘by default’. His words certainly made my blood boil – read the whole thing, it’s not paywalled.

Stunningly, as if they all copy from each other, Remain politicians have taken to the MSM to screech these same warnings in today’s papers: a No Deal is of the devil and must be avoided – so say Dame Caroline Spelman, a Conservative MP and Jack Dromey, a Labour MP, in an article they wrote jointly in today’s (paywalled) Times.

The Labour MP Stephen Kinnock (son of Neil) gives the same warning here, while ChUK’s Anna Soubry wrote her own dire piece of warning in the (paywalled) Times:

“We are facing a national emergency. We have to stop a no-deal Brexit from doing irreparable harm to our country. We have to revoke Article 50” –

the reason being … Nigel Farage and the projected win of TBP on Thursday!

Why the choice, according to Ms Soubry’ s Leader Mr Umunna, and endorsed by her, is now between “No Deal” and “Revocation of Article 50”, that they don’t explain.

My diagnosis is that they have swallowed whole the cumulative “Project Fear” predictions. Nothing could illustrate better that they are unfit to hold office: they are blinded by their own blinkers, blinkers which they themselves have fitted to their eyes and minds.

Meanwhile the remaining Remain Tories in cabinet and the HoC are united – in trying to ‘stop Boris’, according to this report. Yes, this is the huge problem facing the Nation right now: the fate of the Remain Tory Party. Brexit and what we, the voters, are saying is irrelevant.

In this endeavour they’ve even lost sight of the fact that at least some Whitehall inmates are cracking on with preparing for a No-Deal-Brexit, according to the current DExEU minister, Stephen Barclay (paywalled source). No, for them it’s Boris all the way down. Interestingly, the DT reports that:

“Boris Johnson, the favourite to replace Mrs May, is being given daily advice by Conservative election guru Sir Lynton Crosby, who has been credited with helping Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to a “miracle” win at the weekend.” (paywalled link)

I’ve already mentioned in my previous columns that Brexit has become a plaything, just another tactical ploy for those Tories who’re planning to become the PM-replacement.

However, there’s one remarkable twist in this Tory Tale which shows that the political landscape has changed, perhaps irretrievably:

“In a sign of the dramatic demise of the Conservative Party under Theresa May, just 13 per cent of over-70s said they would vote Conservative in a recent YouGov poll. In the 2017 General Election 69 per cent of over-70s backed them.” (paywalled link)

It’s no accident that the combined commentariat of our MSM seem to have overlooked this astonishing fact. It must be too frightening for them to contemplate, so they indulge in this displacement activity to ‘stop Boris’, They’ve obviously abandoned any attempt to ‘stop Nigel Farage’.

 if those true core voters are abandoning the Tories – where will they go? Answers on a postcard …!

 

Three more days!

KBO!

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