I do love our MSM – they are so admirably unbelievable and so extraordinarily unbiased …! This weekend, the opinion writers in the MSM are in full flow.They ponder the legal ramifications of that Benn Bill, they advise Johnson what to do next while others criticise Johnson, reflect on who is to blame or even, in a very few instances, cast a critical eye over Labour. 

One report however shows incontrovertibly that the Remain MPs are indeed traitors. More on that below, let me first get rid of the tedious list of ‘advice’ etc, for the sake of keeping a record.

There are those who think Johnson should or indeed will defy the Benn Bill: here, here, and paywalled here. There are two articles looking at how this might work: here, and paywalled here. These are just ‘what-if’ pieces since nobody knows what Johnson will do. 

Then there are those who advise Johnson and the Tory Party to ‘speak with Farage’: here and paywalled here and here. In an interesting twist Tory MPs now blame Dominic Cummings (!) for preventing Johnson approaching TPB:

“A senior Tory source told The Telegraph: “Cummings is the obstacle to a deal between Boris and Nigel. Boris and Nigel did speak during the referendum campaign and got on but Cummings doesn’t like Nigel. There’s an intellectual snobbery there.” (paywalled link)

Oh dear … Cummings again! He certainly must be ‘of the devil’ because he reads … Sun Tzu! In an extraordinary comment in The Times (link, paywalled) Ben Macintyre uses quotes from Sun Tzu to explain what has been happening. Well, it’s a nice game  – I’ve played it myself when looking at Wellington and the Peninsular War – but irrelevant, except when one wants to look clever while smearing opponents. Mind you, I did like this observation:

“If your opponent is of choleric temper, irritate him,” advised Sun Tzu. Jacob Rees-Mogg smugly recumbent on the front bench is a perfect illustration of that strategy.” (link, paywalled)

Can we now infer that Rees-Mogg as well as Cummings and probably many others have studied Sun Tzu?

I’ll mention Nicholas Soames’ undignified attack on Johnson and Rees-Mogg in passing. Here is a non-paywalled report, the actual interview is (paywalled) here.

We now have a little list of ‘Enemies of Remain’: Johnson, Cummings and Rees-Mogg. Oh, and of course the whole ERG, who are also guilty of destroying the Tory Party, according to Matthew Parris in his paywalled article. Remainers are like innocent lambs, helpless in the face of those cunning ‘enemies’. Perhaps they should start reading Sun Tzu …

Now then, having said all that, here is the report which puts paid to this image of honest, innocent Remainers. It’s in RemainCentral, the title already is liable to make one think of ropes and lamp-posts: “Rebels agreed extension with EU leaders before crunch vote” (link, paywalled). Here are some details:

“Rebel Tory MPs and opposition leaders received private assurances from European leaders that a request by parliament for a three-month Brexit extension would be granted in one last attempt to break the deadlock. The Times understands that senior figures behind the bill to force an extension on Boris Johnson cleared their plan with EU capitals before it was published this week. They received reassurances that the European Council, which is made up of EU leaders, would not stand in the way of one final extension if it was approved by parliament.” (link, paywalled)

Apparently, it wasn’t just Philip Hammond who went to the EU asking for legal advice on how to draw that Benn Bill! And isn’t the EU happy to oblige! Just look at this:

“One figure in the rebel group, which also includes Labour MPs, said that while President Macron of France had been the “most sceptical” about a further delay, they were told he would not stand in the way. “We don’t think it will be granted — we know it will be,” they said of the EU leaders’ likely response. “Those discussions have already taken place.” (link, paywalled)

These, remember, are the people who screamed that a normal Prorogation to prepare for a new parliamentary session was “a coup!”. They themselves, by their action in negotiating behind the government’s back, have overstepped their constitutional role, acting like government ministers.

Unlike government, who must be scrutinised in Parliament by Parliament, they are beyond scrutiny. How is usurping the role of a duly elected government not a coup? There’s more:

“The group has also drawn up plans to take Boris Johnson to court if he follows through on his pledge not to put his name to an extension request. Senior lawyers were understood to have been involved in the drafting of the legislation and advised the MPs it had a “95 per cent chance of being upheld in the courts”. They believe that even if the government challenged the legality of the legislation the courts would make a ruling before October 31 that would prevent Mr Johnson from triggering a no-deal Brexit by default. Yesterday peers approved the bill, clearing the way for it to become law.” (link, paywalled)

Just let that sink in: Remainers are prepared to have Courts decide how the PM , how government should act. If that is not destroying our democracy then I don’t know what is.

Let’s also look at that decision in the HoL. They  passed the Benn Bill yesterday afternoon, as expected. Stewart Jackson in the DT (paywalled link) is scathing:

“For the first time in its history, the cossetted, unelected panjandrums in the House of Lords, the epicentre of Remain fanaticism, this week ripped up its rules to ensure that Hilary Benn’s squalid Brussels capitulation Bill was fast-tracked through the Peers’ House in a dangerous and damaging precedent.” (paywalled link)

Rules, as the Speaker Mr Bercow has shown, can now easily be broken for the greater good of denying Brexit. The next paragraphs go to the heart of the matter:

“Unfolding before us is an existential battle for the cherished notions of Parliamentary democracy, losers’ consent and popular sovereignty – a fight which the British electorate thought had been won after the Peoples’ Budget and the Parliament Act 1911. It’s not just the smug condescension – the idea that MPs and Peers are saving the poor benighted voters from themselves – but the sheer hypocrisy that rankles. The hysteria about the Prime Minister “shutting down democracy” in a “coup” as his government is defeated in the Commons by the Opposition MPs seems incongruous, to say the least.”  (paywalled link)

Jackson makes two more, quite important points: 

“As the Brexiteer Bill Cash MP rightly said in the Commons this week, “we have a system of Parliamentary government, not government by Parliament and that is a fundamental constitutional principle”. […] Tough choices need making: Bercow’s interpretation of the arcane device of Queen’s Consent in the Brexit blocking Bill is almost certainly counter to the advice of Commons clerks and constitutional law experts and surely nullifies the bona fides of this pernicious legislation. As such, refusal of Royal Assent by Her Majesty must surely have remained an option. However, that ship might have sailed.” (paywalled link)

Just so! Nobody knows what Johnson will do on Monday. The one thing we do know is that the Remainers will not allow a GE to take place. Remember: Corbyn was telling the nation that he would agree to a GE when the Benn Bill had been passed. It now has, but the Remainers will again reject a GE because Johnson must first go to Brussels and beg for an extension – which the traitors have already engineered.

A general recap of the situation is here. There is also a poll conducted by the DM which has a stark message. The headline says it all: “Fury of forgotten voters: Almost half back Boris Johnson on early election and most want No-Deal rather than Jeremy Corbyn, poll shows” It’s not paywalled, you can check out the graphs and read it here. 

This poll is just a snapshot, but it shows the huge divide between Westminster and the rest of the country which Douglas Murray, in his Saturday Essay for the DM, eloquently describes. It is well worth reading, not being paywalled.

And finally, to illustrate the utter mess that is Labour’s Brexit policy, there’s the performance of the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Ms Thornberry, on Thursday night’s Question Time (here). When asked what a Labour government would do, she answered that she would negotiate ‘a better deal’ with the EU, then there would be a 2nd Referendum on ‘deal’ or ‘remain’. She and Labour would push for ‘remain’ …! You really couldn’t make it up!

This then is how our wise and wonderful MPs plan to keep us ‘In’: a soft, secretive coup which is destroying our democratic conventions and rules, instigated by traitors negotiating behind the government’s back with the enemy – and the EU is the enemy.

Brussels now knows that it has the backing of the parliamentary Remainers – so what chance does Johnson have when he is forced to go there, begging? And what about us 17.4 million Leave voters?

That is the ‘state of play’ this weekend before the new round of Remain madness kicks off on Monday. We’ll be treated to more hot air from pundits and Westminster politicians on Sunday. Remember though: they know as much as we do about what Johnson will do, and that’s eff all, so give them short shrift.

KBO!