35 days to B-Day – and all the cockroaches have now come out and can be seen in the glare of the approaching Brexit Light. I am seething, and so will you when you’ve finished reading this article!
First of all and quite predictably: the Attorney General Mr Geoffrey Cox and the ‘Brexit Minister’ Mr Stephen Barclay have come back from Brussels empty-handed. They were sent back from their oh-so-crucial talks about the Backstop to do more homework:
“A new Brexit agreement with the European Union will not be agreed, even in principle, until after MPs have voted on a move to rule out no-deal next week, senior Brussels sources have warned. Talks between Stephen Barclay, the Brexit secretary, Geoffrey Cox, the attorney-general, and Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, broke up yesterday with both sides saying that more work needed to be done to resolve the Irish backstop issue. The two sides are due to meet again next week for further “technical discussions”, with Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, admitting that he was suffering from “Brexit fatigue”. He was “not optimistic” that Britain would leave the EU with a deal, he said.” (paywalled link, my bold)
Mr Corbyn’s and Sir Keith Starmer’s little jaunt to Brussels was so productive that it just gets a bare mention in this morning’s papers.
So what will Ms May ‘offer’ the HoC on Tuesday to vote on? Will the vote be postponed? Given the cockroaches, sorry: MPs, coming out into the light thanks to TIGgery, that is a possibility. We read that:
“Theresa May has been warned by a group of 100 moderate Tory MPs that they are prepared to rebel against the Government to force her to delay Brexit if she cannot reach a deal. The Brexit Delivery Group, which represents both Remain and Leave MPs, has called for a free vote next week on a backbench bid to take no deal off the table.” (paywalled link)
and that:
“Jeremy Corbyn has been warned that he faces another exodus of MPs unless he backs a plan to put Theresa May’s Brexit deal to a second referendum. His office has been told that dozens of MPs, including shadow ministers, are prepared to join the new Independent Group in parliament or resign the whip, in defiance over the party’s EU policy.” (paywalled link)
The Tory cockroaches want the No Deal off the table – the Labour cockroaches want a 2nd referendum as price for supporting Ms May’s Whatevah Deal. All threaten to join the TIGs who want to stop Brexit any which way.
This is our Remain Parliament at work: skulduggery, underhand dealings, shenanigans – all this to keep us in the EU, which, as we all know, is working to dismantle the Nation States, thus relegating national parliaments to the status of parish councils which has been the fondest wish of the ‘father of the House Kenneth Clarke’ for decades. After all, which ‘job’ could be more cushy and better paid than being an MP who only has to rubber-stamp ‘directives’ which cannot be debated and thus don’t need any intellectual efforts whatsoever!
Well, the spectacle this week of the TIGgery provides ample evidence of the mental giants populating the Green Benches, see Richard Littlejohn’s coruscating article here. At least they share the obsession of taking selfies – inside the Chamber! – and using their smartphones during debates with a large swath of the population …
But let’s go back to the Labour Revolt. Their demand is especially pernicious:
“They are demanding that he [Corbyn] support a proposal by two of his backbench MPs in which Labour would agree to pass legislation underpinning Mrs May’s deal in return for a public vote. If the deal were rejected by the electorate, the government would be obliged to withdraw Article 50 and remain in the EU.” (paywalled link)
Translated into proper English this means: support Ms May’s WA, whatever the outcome of the current negotiations – but only when a 2nd Referendum is attached: ‘let the people decide’! If we-the-people reject it – and you can be certain that our Remain establishment will make sure that we-the-people do reject it! – then we’ll stay in the EU …
Yes, that is revolting!
So what do our Brussels overlords think about this all? Not a lot. Juncker is reported to suffer from ‘Brexit Fatigue’ … He must be very tired indeed – his ‘fatigue’ has made it into all of this morning’s papers, see e.g. here. More interesting is that Brussels expects an extension because they believe we’d leave with ‘no deal’ otherwise:
“Talks between the two sides indicate that the UK could soon be forced to request that Brexit day delayed, Bloomberg reports. Citing two EU officials, the news outlet said Brussels believes Mrs May will have no choice but to ask that the Article 50 process taking Britain out of the bloc be extended if she manages to secure a Commons majority for her deal in the next few weeks. The EU would reportedly be open to the idea because it would be a “technical extension” to give Parliament time to pass necessary legislation rather than simply allowing more time for negotiations.” (link, my bold)
‘A technical extension’ – interesting! I assume that this means no UK MEPs need to be elected, with everything else staying the same, including our continuing payments to Brussels and our continuing rubber-stamping of EU Directives. Meanwhile Mr Cox will engage in ‘shuttle diplomacy’ because, according to this report, he’s now the most important man to get Ms May’s WA ‘deal’ though the HoC. You can find a good description of the various options here.
You’ll have noticed that all the MSM now have their own ‘Brussels reporters’ with their own special “Brussels sources”, everything breathlessly presented via podcasts and social media. It’s Brexit gossip plain and simple, all ‘en coulisse’, but it influences the ‘thinkings’ of our MPs. It’s the vast echochamber of and for Remainers. It’s the perfect smoke-and-mirrors.
All we can do is go to LEAVE rallies and bombard our constituency MPs with daily emails – they really have no idea!
For mental sustenance and inspiration, I recommend reading Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The Beginnings” …
Automatic by-election if an MP resigns membership of their political party:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/242193
Will this petition reach 10,000 signatures tonight?
Come on let`s be at least honest among ourselves, are we UKIP Brexiteers really surprised at what is going on here.?
Maybe our parliamentary “virgins” not honed in the wiles of that cesspit of fudge, misery and downright gangsterism – Brussels.
UKIP has been in and exposed the “belly of the beast” over many years, there cannot be much that surprises them, which for me as a mere onlooker culminated in the rape and despoliation of Greece – remember they had a referendum and ended up with nothing, indeed even worse off than when they began.
Brussels didn`t even shed a tear!!! They win the prize for interpretation of the word NIET ( the Russians didn`t even get started alongside the EU lot)
The Only peace they have preserved in Europe is that which they have imposed on those who haven`t got a means of shouting back.
They’ve had two years to sort all this out, and all our politicians have done is pontificate and swan backwards and forwards to Brussells and back, blowing out empty hollow soundbites, vagaries and general hot-air. Now with four weeks to go, our MPs are still insisting that they want “no-deal” taken off the table, and that we must leave with an agreement. But not Theresa May’s.
Perhaps if our politicians had not spent the last two years pontificating, grandstanding and generally being obstructive, something sensible might have been achieved within that timescale?
The other question to ask is how much has this all cost the taxpayer – I bet those flights and Eurostar trips, as well as ‘luncheons’ and dinners haven’t come cheap. They are taking the piss out of all of us.
Depressing report but at least it is a pleasant change to see Labour and the Conservatives pressing the self-destruct button rather than UKIP.
True, and it is refreshing to see Labour being tainted with the “racist” brush – funny how Stand Up To Racism and Hope Not Hate are very quiet on this! 🙂
I have never been one for poetry, and yet this one from Kipling I came across at school, now many years ago ! What a belter of a poem, and it holds me in its arms today. The build up from utter disbelief in this Government, allied to the blatant stupidity of the EU, has made me hate ! It is a feeling that is totally foreign to me, but I have indeed arrived, so watch out Mrs May and the fools in Brussels, because I am refusing to take any more of your bent rubbish !
Playing while the country becomes ungovernable, faith in all the public services falls, political trust thrown out of the window along with everything else, how long before calls for the H.O.L and the monarchy to be abolished and what then will fill the vacuum left by these people. Interesting times indeed, not that many people seem that bothered judging by the ‘half-term’ crowds in popular retail destinations of choice this week.
To stop all this we need a General Election within 14 days. Then we can get rid of all the dross and get a decent government who can also stop all pension rights to allmp’s who defied the democratic vote
MPs gilt edge pensions are an outrage and need pruning immediately. T But we must defuse the timebomb of public pensions for all civil servants too. At the very least all new civil servants should join on the basis of a defined contribution pension be funded rather than unfunded.
https://www.newsoneplace.com/1433611901/defuse-timebomb-public-pensions
Taxpayers Alliance recently disclosed 22 departmental managers with average pension pots of near £1 million !!!!!
Foreign Office chief mandarin Sir Simon McDonald can look forward to a pot of £1.8 million!
UKIP may like to consider adopting the Tax Payers Alliance findings as policy.
If we had a General Election who would fill the void if we drained the swanp? Would people have the courage to vote for the only principled party in the country – UKIP?
How could UKIP be any worse than a corrupt establishment that has opened up the floodgates to 3rd world, (although the populace doesnt realise yet), exposed us to attacks, gagged free speech, pissed away our wonderful European culture; abused deracinated and brainwashed our kids, destroyed Christian tradition and traditional family values, landed us in humungeous debt, left us totally at the mercy of to a very unpleasant EU empire, made us wide open to arbitrary arrest imprisonment etc and destroyed our civil liberties, destroyed our capacity to defend ourselves, destroyed our fishing and worldwide trade? And that’s just for starters. Liblabcon are not just useless they’re our enemies. How much more persuding do voters need not to vote tribally? Provided we had trustworthy UKIP politicians, and Gerard Batten is one, it could only be an improvement.
So the daily farce of ‘honest’ Labour MPs leaving is ongoing – another one has just left. They (TIGs) cloak themselves with the mantle of moral outrage about anti-semitism – but disregard blithely our outrage about how they betray Brexit.
No matter – just like Juncker we all seem to suffer from ‘Brexit Fatigue’, else there’d be more outrage on here bout how we’re being betrayed.
Jack,
You are certainly right about the Brexit fatigue for now; it’s all getting a bit tiring reading about the antics in government. I guess we all have our opinions about “them” already which will not change.