Delusional. Incapable. Unwilling to look further than their own noses: that describes Ms May’s cabinet, Ms May’s government and the Tory MPs. One day before the Local Elections it’s as if all of the above simply have lost the courage to even think of getting rid of Ms May and Leave with No Deal.
Ms May told the MSM that she wants to conclude the talks with Labour by next week:
“The Prime Minister has made it clear that she wants cross-party talks wrapped up by the middle of next week, adding to suspicions that she is waiting until after tomorrow’s local elections before announcing a climbdown.” (paywalled link)
Isn’t that politically clever of Ms May! And did her cabinet ministers tell her, tell the Tory MPs and the nation: ‘No, Prime Minister’? No – they fell on their knees like supplicants before the throne of an autocrat:
“Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary who campaigned for Leave in the EU Referendum, backed Mrs May in yesterday’s meeting, suggesting that the Tories might have to give ground to Labour so that Jeremy Corbyn could claim victory in the talks and sell the deal to his MPs. Mr Gove told ministers that it would be better to have the “unpalatable” outcome of a deal with Labour than the “disastrous” outcome of Brexit not happening at all.” (paywalled link)
You read that right: the ‘choice’ is now between May’s WA or No Brexit – and for that the Tories must give in to Labour. Ever since her WA was published we’ve said that in the end she will ‘offer’ the HoC and us the ‘choice’ of her deal or no Brexit. And here we are … but who could have predicted that she’d go as far as giving in to Labour to achieve this!
It doesn’t matter one little bit that her and the cabinet’s hands are by no means superglued to the WA/No Brexit choice. Sir John Redwood in his Diary has pointed out repeatedly that we can leave with No Deal by simply not running the EP Elections. We’d be out on May 23rd.
It doesn’t matter one little bit that eminent experts have pointed out at length and in various publications that staying in the Customs Union would be a disaster for our economy and would in fact mean we don’t leave at all.
No – forget all that: Ms May will plough on, regardless, to the bitter end – shades of Downfall? – but why her ministers are following her into the abyss is an enigma.
Meanwhile we read that Corbyn and Labour won’t commit officially to a 2nd Referendum – Mr Watson MP’s shenanigans notwithstanding:
“Jeremy Corbyn has seen off an attempt by his MPs to make calling a second Brexit referendum official Labour policy in the European elections. The leadership had opposed the move, spearheaded by Tom Watson, Mr Corbyn’s deputy, to shift the party’s position and back putting any Brexit deal to another public vote. Yesterday Labour’s national executive committee (NEC) rejected that and instead kept the party’s policy unchanged from the wording agreed at last year’s conference.”(link, paywalled)
The reason why Corbyn seems happy to keep Labour divided on this issue is this:
“By sticking to his current policy of a referendum only on a “bad Tory Brexit”, Mr Corbyn kept alive the chance of a deal that could be passed in Parliament with Labour support.” (paywalled link)
The Tory Chief Whip has also waded in:
“The Tories may have to accept a permanent customs union to get Brexit through Parliament, the Cabinet was warned yesterday. In a blunt analysis, the Government’s chief whip Julian Smith said there was no chance of passing a version of Mrs May’s deal without Labour’s support – and warned that the Government could be ‘sunk’ if it tried. A source said Mr Smith told yesterday’s meeting of the Cabinet: ‘It’s a customs union or a second referendum, and we are not having a second referendum.’ (link)
The leaked details are … juicy. Labour wants that Customs Union, Ms May wants her deal pushed through the HoC before the EP elections, so they’re all now between that rock and that hard place of their own making:
“Mr Smith yesterday issued ministers with a detailed paper highlighting the risks involved. He said it was clear that Labour would vote against the legislation unless the Government met its demands for a soft Brexit. With 34 Tory rebels and the DUP also still opposed, the legislation would have no chance of passing. Ministers were warned that in order to bring the deal back later, they would then have to prorogue Parliament [terminate a session until November], with no guarantee that the DUP would back a Queen’s Speech – potentially bringing about the collapse of the Government.’(link)
What unedifying spectacle! The two main parties playing party politics with Brexit, with our decision of June 23rd 2016. The then PM David Cameron (remember him? Where is he?) admonished the Nation that this was our decision, a one-in-a-lifetime decision which the government would implement …
Instead, Ms May and her ministers have driven themselves powerfully into a cul-de-sac with no exit, all because they are unwilling to implement the No Deal/WTO Brexit:
“Failure to reach an agreement [with Labour] means the Government could trigger a round of votes on different options to end the stalemate, including a soft Brexit that would keep Britain closely shackled to Brussels. No 10 said there needed to be “compromise on both sides” to secure a deal with Labour.” (link)
“Compromise” according to Ms May obviously means that she gives in and the other side wins. She’s shown this again and again in her negotiations with the EU, so why would it be any different when ‘negotiating’ with Corbyn?
And why, you might ask, does Ms May so desperately want her WA forced through before the EP elections, with Labour votes if necessary, disregarding the fate of her MPs and her Party?
Because she hopes that by next week we’ll have forgotten the disastrous result of tomorrow’s Local Elections, and because she, her advisers and handlers know of course who will win the EP elections: TBP and Mr Farage – see this:
“Less than a third of Conservative voters see the party as being pro-Brexit, according to new polling ahead of the local and European elections next month. Just 29 per cent of those who voted for Theresa May’s party in 2017 feel the Conservatives are pro-Brexit with 31 per cent seeing them as anti-Brexit, according to polling from YouGov conducted at the end of April.These figures will strike fear into the hearts of Tory strategists with the party looking likely to face two damaging elections in the space of four weeks in May.” (paywalled link)
But that won’t matter, will it, once she’s got the HoC accept her WA deal! Because if she achieves this, she can abolish the EP Elections, so : no Mr Farage. And for good measure, here’s a certain Mr Rees-Mogg now apparently fighting the 2015 GE again, telling listeners yesterday:
“If we get to a General Election with the votes split between the Conservative party and the Brexit Party, all that does is let Jeremy Corbyn in who doesn’t deliver Brexit at all because the Labour party is quite hostile to it.” (link)
Ah, but Jacob: by the time of such GE your PM, to whom you’ve sworn eternal loyalty yet again, will have pushed her BRINO treaty through. So a successive Corbyn government’s ‘hostility’ won’t matter.
I thought you knew that? Wouldn’t it be better to prevent a GE and Corbyn altogether by ditching May now, even if it’s 5 minutes past midnight, and get the WTO deal? Wouldn’t that take the wind out of the sails of TBP and Mr Farage?
If I can see it – why can’t you? What is it about the HoC and MPs on both sides that they seem to become unable to think for themselves? Is there something in the water? We should be told!
KBO!
YBF former pupils seem to be hanging together pretty successfully plus Bruges group – Nigel`s one
Jacob Rees Moog does not seem to be flavour of the month with Brexit people. But He has been proved right in quickly realising that a No Deal Brexit was was out, out, out, he went for the only option to honour the 2016 referendum i.e. Mrs May’s deal where a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush and therefore once the deal came into effect the EU would cease control over British law. He was also correct in seeing that “There is a time in the affairs of men ………….. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.” Remainers have been emboldened by Parliament and the media and are now aiming to see off Brexit altogether ……. and venture is now lost?
Travelling through the suburbs of Birmingham yesterday, with their identikit homes, gardens and cars (mostly German in origin with a few French ones ) manicured gardens, clean streets, and a queue at the coffee shop for the morning take-away coffee and croissant to drink and eat on the way to the ‘workplace’ it occurs to me that these people very important as they are, are never in a million years going to vote for change we are quite smug and content with our lot thank you very much. The e.u doesn’t cause us any problems ………………………
You lot must have short memories if you have forgotten that Nigel`s original plan was a reverse takeover of the Conservative party, this he dreamed up following his laudation in Canada.
Up to a point he was successful, he flooded UKIP with Cons, even got a couple of MPs to cross over and loads of council apparachiks and was said to be in cahoots with another 40 MPs.
Pity he was so successful that Camoron promised a referendum and to his horror won the election outright.
I wouldn`t be surprised if Farage still has in mind something similar. why do you think he is working so hard to get rid of socialist/radical/racist UKIP (Oh I know that`s a load of hooey, but he doesn`t want to be lumbered with the grass roots Labourites who voted for Brexit remember there were said to be 122 second places many of them former labour strongholds brought in I understood by Nuttall).
One last thought you all seem to be wondering how St Theresa can so constantly be giving in. My supermarket fishmonger put it succinctly this afternoon – She`s NO BACKBONE. I remember Nigel used to summarize Cleggy “He thinks we are not good enough” – I think that label attaches to many of the other “REMAINERS” – no guts.
Meanwhile, good piece on Nigel: https://bylinetimes.com/2019/04/30/%EF%BB%BFpaypal-man-why-wont-farage-reveal-who-is-funding-his-brexit-party/
Very accurate.
Got to be Aaron Banks surely despite the denials…
Paul Sykes has form ?
Some of you Ukippers are beginning to sound as tribal for your party as Jacob Rees Mogg. Who are you fighting? Farage and his record-breakingly successful party to restore democracy we have been cheated of, or the parliamentary parties that have engendered the coup?
Pat Condell in Battle for Britain Utube, has pointed out we are in an existential battle to restore democracy. He says that continuing rule by this Parliament would be like being governed by someone who tried to kill you.
I recognise it is six of one and half a dozen of the other, but we have to get our priorities right and fix on the objective both parties want. Please stop knocking seven bells out of each other and go for the jugular!
Tony, please see my piece below on Farage. I wouldn’t trust the bu***r far as I could throw ‘im.
Trouble is, who the heck CAN you trust these days? Only person I trust is myself, and possibly my daughter’s pet hamster Avo.
I’ve no doubt it’s the Tory party. Is he not now their Controlled Opposition?
Talking about Nigel Farage, I know he isn’t popular with some of you but in this recent speech here, he makes some very good points. Worth a flick through at least, it is nearly an hour long but interesting and a lot of this stuff we should all be shouting out loud.
“NIGEL FARAGE EXPLAINS THE RISE IN POPULISM AROUND THE WORLD!!”
https://youtu.be/d_UwxMDVX8M
That’s the trouble, he and some of the Tories know how to make all the right Brexit noises. very effectively indeed, fooling people that they’re on their side; but when push comes to shove they are the servants of rich corporations, not the working man.
You did see that report recently didn’t you? Allegedly witnessed by Stuart Agnew MEP:
The closed-door-with-no-cameras EU meeting in which Mr Farage stated he wanted to delay Brexit so he could parade his new party MEPs in the EU Parliament.
He only wants to get us out of the EU? Yeah, right.