What despicable spectacle the HoC presented us with yesterday! There are no words to describe the utter disgust I have for that lot, who in their vanity are destroying not just Brexit but our Parliament and our democracy.
Yesterday afternoon I watched live the unmitigated, utter shambles which the debate and voting produced. Add the MSM and the twitterati into this poisonous mix and, with so many others, I ask: where’s the modern-day Oliver Cromwell when we need him!
Before I jump into this morass, here are two general observations, non-partisan and without prejudice:
1 while Mr Gove (T), who presented the Government’s motion, gave way to many MPs from all parties, Mr Starmer (L) only took those from the opposition benches. Make up your own minds as to what this means should Labour come into power;
2 for uninformed, unadulterated displays of meaningless, virtue-signalling ‘speeches’ you cannot beat female Labour MPs! They are however extremely good at heckling their ‘sister’, Ms May, who was croaking her way through her speech. Courtesy? An unknown concept …
The papers are full of the actual results (here is a concise report, scroll down a bit) and of the Parliamentary mayhem. The ‘free vote’ allowed by the PM was suddenly deemed too dangerous and at the last minute MPs and ministers were told to vote against the now amended government motion. Well, they didn’t … So now, thanks to these traitorous remainers, the government was told by Parliament not to leave the EU without a ‘deal’ under any circumstances, at any time …
Before you throw your tea mug against the wall in rage, or kick, God forbid, your dog or cat, watch this video clip where JRM explains patiently to a BBC girlie what this actually means: this motion does not change the law, which is – still – that we leave the EU on the 29th of March. The inimitable Sir John Redwood makes the exact same point in his diary entry for today.
It’s indicative for the indescribable ignorance of most on the opposition benches, Mr Corbyn included, that they believe Ms May can be forced to get that extension by obeying ‘the will of parliament’. That, btw, is what today’s debate and vote is about: to ‘force’ Ms May to go and beg the EU for that extension. These morons again disregard that the EU is not going to play ball!
To crown it all, Ms May is offering yet another vote on her WA! Yes indeedy – this vote is to take place on March 20th, a day before she goes to the meeting of the EU ambassadors to ask if they will graciously grant us an extension … (see here).
Under apocalyptic headlines of ‘chaos’ and ‘meltdown’ The Times reports (paywalled):
“Theresa May is preparing a third vote on her Brexit deal after holding secret compromise talks with the DUP and Brexiteers. Tory MPs who voted against the deal are understood to be having private discussions with Stephen Barclay, the Brexit secretary, and Geoffrey Cox, the attorney-general, over possible changes to the legal advice. It is thought that these changes could allow them and the DUP to support Mrs May’s deal if another vote were held.”
This latest version of Ms May’s abomination will include a ‘long extension’, as the (paywalled) DT reports:
“Mrs May said MPs would be able to vote on Thursday for a “short, sharp” three-month delay, dependent on them voting for a deal on or before March 20. The vote would contain provision for Mrs May to ask the EU for a longer delay at the European Council meeting on March 21, but that would mean Britain having to take part in the European elections in May. MPs are expected to vote in favour of a delay on Thursday evening.”
Confused? Yes, me also as well likewise …
The EU reactions are also ‘indicative’, or even ‘meaningful’, and equally confused:
“The European Union will reject a delay to Brexit unless MPs decide whether to hold a second referendum or change course for a softer Brexit. Michel Barnier, the EU’s lead negotiator, warned that European leaders would not agree to an extension next week if MPs do not hold votes on the future of Brexit. The move could push Britain towards a no-deal exit.”(paywalled link)
Here’s another quote:
“The European Commission said Wednesday night’s Commons votes were ‘not enough’ to rule out a no-deal exit, which remains the default outcome on March 29. […] A European Commission spokeswoman said last night: ‘To take no deal off the table, it is not enough to vote against no deal – you have to agree to a deal. We have agreed a deal with the prime minister and the EU is ready to sign it.’ (here)
If I read the tealeaves correctly, this means M Bernier will only ‘allow’ an extension if Ms May say there will be a GE and a 2nd referendum. Do the Tory Remainers understand this? I do have my doubts … but am sure Labour does …
The reactions amongst EU politicians are actually quite hilarious. They are being faced with a possible, if not probable, participation of the UK in the upcoming EU Parliamentary elections if there’s a ‘long extension’. Mr Verhofstadt does not want to see Nigel Farage back in the EU parliament, what a surprise!
Under the jaw-dropping headline “Brexit: Europe fears for Britain’s democracy”, The Times (paywalled) reports what German EU politicians say. Unbelievably, the Germans ascribe this ‘chaos’ to Ms May caving in to ‘hardcore Brexiteers’! You really couldn’t make it up …
I relish this quote:
“An apocalyptic mood on the other side of the Channel was most clearly expressed by Manfred Weber, a leading German MEP from Angela Merkel’s party, who said the priority was now to get the UK out of the EU at the end of the month so that the “British chaos” would not spread into Europe.” (same paywalled link).
Good grief – if we’re so dangerous, why not kick us out! It’s what we want!
Manfred Weber is the presumptive successor of M Juncker , btw. – but he won’t get that juicy job should Brexit be scuppered by a long extension which would swamp the EU Parliament with British Brexiteers as well as the ‘orrible ‘populists’ from Italy, France, Germany and all the countries with EUrosceptic parties.
The MSM here and in Germany and France may be full-on for Remain, but the people are not fooled. So the Brexit game is not over yet by any means. ‘Project Fear’ is now gripping the EU politicians as well.
I’ll watch today’s proceedings in the HoC so you don’t have to. Meanwhile it’s
15 days to Brexit!
KBO!
FACTS
The Tories contested the 2015 General Election on the explicit promise of a binding Referendum on membership of the EU. On 7 September 2015, the bill setting out its format & terms was passed 316-53 – a massive 85.6% vote.
In the People’s Vote that followed on 23 June 2016, despite Project Fear of incessant media & government propaganda, a decisive 7.9% (1.3m) more voted LEAVE than Remain.
We’d waited 14,994 days for that Referendum. So, the due date for the next Referendum is 12 July 2057, give or take.
On 8 February 2017, Parliament passed the Art. 50 bill (setting 29 March 2019 as the exit date) by 494-122, an 80.2% vote to LEAVE and, more to the point, to leave now.
In the snap General Election on 8 June 2017, 85.1% of voters supported candidates whose manifestos guaranteed us LEAVING, and Brexit taking place on 29 March 2019.
29 March 2019 is 1,009 days after the Referendum. Even more delay accomplishes nothing but to damage the UK.
A ‘WTO Rules’ Brexit via Art. 24 of GATT 1947 is perfect.
Postponement of Brexit by even a day is High Treason.
A ‘Second Referendum’ of any sort will be High Treason.
Any watered-down Brexit (‘Brino’) will be High Treason.
The people have already spoken. What they said was:
*** JUST LEAVE! ***
Well said, Freddy: a sound analysis. To these craven occupants of our parliament, loyalty to country and to the will of its ordinary people are no longer meaningful. To them, democracy exists only within the Westminster bubble.
Well said Fred. Facts mean nothing to the traitors selling out Britain. We don’t need a people’s vote we need a people’s Parliament. Either replace the present lot or start afresh.
Reading this article I have just realised why MPs (and others) must want to take ‘no deal’ ie: WTO and what we voted for, off the table. To do so now had seemed contradictory, undemocratic, lacking in intelligence and worse, but it has just occurred to me that it is likely they do not want that option available in case there is a second referendum…which presumably means they fear and expect that it would win.
It might need a new one but “The Prime Minister should advise Her Majesty the Queen to prorogue Parliament.”:
The Prime Minister should advise Her Majesty the Queen to prorogue Parliament suspending the current parliamentary session until 2nd April 2019 to prevent any attempts by parliamentarians to thwart Brexit on 29th March 2019. Preparations for no-deal/WTO will continue.
The Prime Minister’s deal has been rejected. No further deal is available from the EU. Remaining in the EU is not an option. Extension or revocation of Article 50 is not an option. I believe the British people voted to leave with no mention of a deal and that WTO rules, to which Britain will default on 29th March 2019, are in Britain’s best interests. We may get a better deal after, but not until, we have left.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/237487
very well stated and I hope it goes your way and mine
Thank you. The petition was created by Laura Bailhache.
Jane4Brexit, I have just signed the petition.
Good…looking at the page it seems to be ‘clicking round’ very nicely, quickly enough to watch it moving!
As expected few signatures in Greater London. Wales and Scotland. Will these people ever waken up to reality?
I am still of the opinion that May is running a sting operation against the EU. I suspect that the abstentions were organised to ensure that ‘no deal’ was dropped. May will end up going to the EU to ask for an extension, which will be vetoed. She can then return to the Commons and declare that we will leave on the 29th, and blame it on the EU. This will avoid the problems that will ensue when new EU finance laws come into play on 1st April. This will ensure that the City of London retains control of the $50trillion worth of offshore trust funds. Brexit is all about protecting the elite and their untaxed money.
Hope you’re right John.
Much as I admire your optimism John, and indeed wish you were right, I just can’t see it.
She could say now
‘We leave, I’ve tried everything ( at least twice) to get a deal, and all I have been offered by those bone headed Eurocrats is this crummy Withdrawal Agreement. So I am delivering the referendum result that you, the people, asked for against the intransigence of the EU.’
Blame the people, blame the EU, she was fighting the good fight. No she is not on our side.
I am just wondering when unilaterally withdrawing notice under Article 50 is going to come into play.
The unilateral withdrawal of Article 50 will come into play if they cannot agree on the terms of the Article 50 extension (e.g. the EU demands onerous financial contributions or some member state demands onerous conditions in order to agree the extension, and there is no majority in Parliament to agree). That’s when they will withdraw Article 50 notification rather than allow leaving.
In my opinion, May is a Remainer and working for the EU and against best British interests. I think she is neither stupid nor incompetent, but very dogged, determined, extraordinarily thick skinned, and ruthless. She knows exactly what she is doing, and why.
She appears to be deliberately harming her own country, just like Merkel is deliberately harming hers. There is a bigger picture behind all this.
May, Merkel, Macron. The bigger picture is three countries with failing political systems. Three leaders all reaching the top of their respective greasy poles with policies that are obviously toxic to the interests of their own people. Surely no co-incidence.
Tomaž; I abolutely agree with your opinion of May. Let’s not forget her record as Home Secretary too.
REMINDER
London UKIP supporters should have already received an email from me (if you haven’t, check your spam folder) –
************************
Please make your way to Parliament Square / The College Green today, if you possibly can.
************************
I am en route there already. I will be giving radio / TV interviews and meeting up with other Brexiteers, including MEPs.
Yesterday’s betrayal of the people – by a narrow margin (the Spelman amendment to postpone a WTO Rules Brexit passed by 312-308, i.e. 1.299%% more voted for it than against it; by comparison, the margin for our victory at the 2016 EU Referendum was 7.865%).
Today’s vote by the traitors is to delay Brexit, maybe by 3 months – a delay that may well become a perpetual one (the principle having been established) and lead to a Second (they mean, Third) Referendum.
It is already 994 days since the Referendum. A 3 month extension from the existing date of March 29 would make it 1,100 days, Outrageous!
See you there.
Best,
Freddy
Not my government. i want my country back.
Yes, it was the Spelman/Cooper amendment to May’s motion that set the crash-ball rolling, with the connivance of Tory Remainers, hurriedly whipped but invulnerable to any resulting penalty. And, as so often happens, its small majority makes a mockery of any argument about the modest majority for leave in the 2016 Referendum.
Freddy, you and I are often in email contact but I received nothing from you this morning – not even in my Junk mail.
Chris, you are not on the UKIP **London** mailing list, for the obvious reason. :–) Informal emails from me are a different matter.
As you are evidently a glutton for punishment, I have now added you to it. The invoice follows.
‘Tory MPs who voted against the deal are understood to be having private discussions with Stephen Barclay, the Brexit secretary, and Geoffrey Cox, the attorney-general, over possible changes to the legal advice.’
Tie another pretty ribbon round the rotten package and try again, (and again and again and……….?)
The Government has overturned the will of the electorate which was expressed in the 2016 Referendum and no longer represents the people.
The Government is no longer legitimate.
MPs who voted against the will of the people are no longer entitled to represent their constituencies.
The consensus between the people and parliament, where we allow MPs to make laws on our behalf, is now broken.
Parliament is, therefore, no longer legitimate, but an unlawful tyranny.
We have every right, under international law and the UN Charter, to resist.
If the Government attempts to turn the police or armed forces against us, it is up to the Crown ( the Queen ) to order those forces that pledge their allegiance to the Crown, to stand down or, alternatively, take up arms to resist the illegitimate tyrannical government and its illegitimate members and depose it.
The monarchy seems to have gone very quiet on the whole subject Mr.Bav, presumably for the same reasons they have used since 1972. If the parliament falls then presumably the H.O.L and the monarchy could well go with it. Just what the e.u would like as they ‘do’ neither God or Monarchy.
I found this to be worth watching.
Brexit Has Been Betrayed — Sargon of Akkad
I really could not keep up with all the twists and turns of this shameful saga without your excellent daily briefs Vivian – thankyou so much.
If this pandemonium goes on much longer it may develop into the modern equivalent of the Schleswig-Holstein question.
Thank you, Jake!
According to an article I circulated about 10 days ago by Christopher Howarth, a HoC senior researcher and Tory adviser, any request for approval of the EU 27 of an extension would be threatened with legal action if the request was not endorsed by a full Act of Parliament. I assume Brexiteers are aware of this.
Apart from the possibility of a veto of the extension (maybe by our anti-EU friends like the populist Italian government or Hungary’s Victor Orban ) I think, from an EU 27 perspective, they are tiring of the whole thing and want to see an end to it. The swine in Parliament may like playing these games, but the EU27 are irritated with them and surely do not want to continue the “game” beyond 29 March , as indicated by Verhofstadt yesterday. A lot of them are facing their own populist insurgencies and allowing slack to the UK Remainer swine might play ill for them in the upcoming Euro elections.
The possibility of an Italian veto of a British request to delay exit must be high : we often forget that Italy is being really clobbered by the EU. Their economy is in a mess. Thanks to PR voting(which Britain is denied by our corrupt elite) they now have a populist anti-EU government THAT NEEDS ALL THE HELP IT CAN GET against a vindictive EU. What better help than a full Brexit JUST BEFORE THE EURO ELECTIONS? They would be mad NOT to exercise their right to veto , IMO. Hungary too
If there’s anyone whose Italian is any good out there, perhaps they could write to the Italian PM and lobby for a veto.
Gerard Batten should be doing this. If Bliar, Sturgeon and all sorts of Remainers can hawk themselves round Europe to thwart the will of the people, then no-one could object, although I would pay no attention if they did.
I assume Nigel has already written/phoned/had a word.
Yes, Jim, Gerard SHOULD …..
An interesting exchange between Farage and Verhofstadt if you haven’t seen it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0JaK3hbfm4
Farage made the very good point , with which I agree, that the WA , which he clearly thinks like I do was written by Merkel, was far too arrogant and was bound to be rejected. They pushed their luck too far. It’s now too late for an alternative. Spot on.
I note Verhofstadt said he would be against ANY extension unless a clear purpose was indicated. What on Earth is an extension of just 3 months for exactly?
Surely the WA is dead? I hope that cow doesn’t try to get it through for a third time.
Peter
Peter Lindsey, Thank you for that link. Like him or loathe him Nigel has a way with words.
Remember what happened in Greece – the EU appointed one of their number to rule over the whole lot. I fear the bloc sending in either a political overlord or law enforcement officers of one sort or another to ‘subdue’ us. Now that really would result in anarchy. Unlikely perhaps, but we must be ready.
Just watching the British politicians saying “of course the EU will grant an extension, short or long” and yet your quotes above query that. Are our politicians underestimating the bloc? If so, what will they do when the EU refuses?
Debbie, I think our Remain MPs in their own bubble are disregarding what the EU politicians/sources’ say.
I can only conclude that they either do not read the papers, or are utter morons (sorry).
Are they clever enough to go for a machiavellian approach, pushing us into an 2-year extension (Blair was telling Macron how to do that) in order to get their GE (Corbyn in No 10) and ‘people’s vote’, in the hope to rescind our Brexit Referendum vote on June 23rd 2016?
With the ‘help’ of Blair, Barnier, Macron and Merkel, anything is possible …
If our Remain MPs are not, at this stage, listening to what’s coming out of the EU, they are indeed stupid! And yes, that might very easily be the case.
But will Parliament accept a two year extension or will they realise that the only reason for such a move is GE/second referendum/revoke Brexit? I think the ERG would have something to say about that and you may note in my news review this morning that Steve Baker, the group’s deputy chair, has told Peston that he’ll ensure we’re still leaving on March 29. I hope he’s right.
Never forget that the EU needs our money if it is to survive whether that is our fee for continued membership or that ridiculous “divorce bill”.
I think I’ll call the EU the Hotel California after that song by The Eagles about the hotel that you can check out of but never leave.
I also thought about writing an article to let of a bit of steam but looking at the papers, what I wanted to say had already been said. Nigel Farage, Gerard Batten and several others are already saying that our government no longer represents the people and so it is not a democratic government.
Many, including me, have been saying for years that democracy is an illusion and now here it is staring us in the face. Our government has been infiltrated by Quislings, representatives of an anti-democratic, and invading foreign power, we are being attacked every bit as much as we were in the first two world wars or any other war for that matter.
We the people never gave our politicians any kind of mandate to sell out our democracy, it’s been done by stealth, lies and subterfuge over decades. War is war though, it’s just that the bombs and bullets haven’t started flying in earnest yet but they will.
The disrespect for our democratic rights both here and in the US is something that we must no longer tolerate, unfortunately I can’t see this ending well but the longer we put off this fight the worse it will be. Don’t forget, the EU are building an army while ours is being depleted and all the time we are still tied to the EU our government can look to the EU for protection, we could have their latest version of the Waffen SS on our streets.
What is coming will not be easy to deal with and we must be careful, we have to be clever. Much depends on events over the next few days but I think were going to have to start making a few plans and we need to face up to that. We can’t let these criminals take our country from us.
If only we didn’t have PAYE we could clobber them where it hurts.
how about those who can afford it having ageneral strike that would hit the treasury
I fear you are correct in the points you make, after all, the WA that Teresa May is trying to push through is a complete capitulation document, the sort the losing side in a war would be made to agree to. What does that make her? Make no mistake, this is a battle for our democracy, and just as the freedom of Europe rested on our remaining free throughout WW2, so those same countries will stand or fall based on whether we are able to get out of the EU monster now. If we go down, the lights will go out around Europe again….
I agree with Flyer.
I thank God for this daily article which gathers all the facts together, outlining where we really stand and giving a sense of some stability and hope amid the chaos and misinformation that abounds in the MSM. Thank you!
Totally agree Viv and as usual a concise and accurate article. People need to look though at our representatives , as that’s what they are a representative cross section of the U.K, what an edifying spectacle is it not, just actually what you would see any large gathering, lack of understanding, lack of courtesy lack of anything except their total immersion in themselves. The ‘long march ‘ through the institutions seems to have been a success and now we see the result , that is the reality in the U.K today, and apparently we are going to take on the world , good luck with that.
Leave or not, both Houses will need to be thoroughly fumigated to get rid of the infestation of vermin.