Yesterday politicians were littering the Sunday TV shows. Just as some think Twitter is where on ‘does’ politics, others think that Sunday telly is the best way of getting their point across. I’ve not watched any of this, but our lovely MSM are happy to provide us with video clips and quotes. One was actually rather profound, but way above the paygrade of the Remain TV presenter. I’ll come to that later. Meanwhile a certain Mr Blair was touting his 2nd Referendum as best solution in a German Paper … words fail me …!

Ms May and her colleagues were of course yesterday busy as well, and thus the Nation woke up to a headline (paywalled) in the DT (also picked up by the DM) which is a stunner:

Exclusive: Theresa May mulls amending Good Friday Agreement to get her Brexit deal past MPs:

“One of the proposals under consideration is rewriting the 1998 accord to assure Ireland that the UK is committed to no hard border on the island after the UK leaves the European Union in March. Ministers believe that adding some text into the agreement would serve as a way of avoiding having to commit the UK to the backstop. The plan is likely to prove highly controversial and would require the consent of all the parties involved in Northern Ireland. Senior EU sources said it was a non starter while even UK Government sources were “sceptical” that it would work. The fact it is even being considered underlines the political crisis now facing the Prime Minister.” (my bold)

Just so – and one wonders who ‘counselled’ Ms May that this was an option. There’s more:

“On Sunday night, Mrs May held a conference phone call with her Cabinet. One Cabinet minister said the outcome of the call was “essentially one more heave on the backstop. Mrs May is said to have told them her plan was to do “something” on the backstop. Asked if it was something specific or just “anything”, she is said to have told them “the latter”.

This is obviously born out of sheer desperation, the desperation being caused by Ms May having to present her ‘Plan B’ today in Parliament when the various wrecking amendments will also be presented. She surely cannot be seriously thinking that this would get her WA through Parliament! One would like to know if her Whitehall handler, Olly Robbins, gave her this advice …

Here’s more:

“But The Daily Telegraph understands one plan would see the UK and Ireland agree a separate set of principles, or add text to “support or reference” the 1998 peace deal, setting how both sides will guarantee an open border after Brexit. One source said this form of high level agreement would be “a way to reinforce trust with the Irish to give them something more tangible so we can stick to our commitments”.

The Times (paywalled) also reports on ‘May’s Mullings’. Obviously some of those taking part in that conference call were happy to leak it all over the MSM. We ought to be grateful for this, even though it illustrates the breakdown of May’s government: discipline has gone out of the window and it’s every man for himself … The impression of a floundering PM is disquieting.

Our ‘friends’ in the EU are of course aghast. This is the first reaction, reported by the DT’s Brussels correspondent:

“As they say in Brussels, when it comes to trade, customs and regulations, this  is “not just Ireland’s border”, it is an EU external border (or will be after Brexit) and it is the EU that has the ‘competence’ to police it.The idea that the other 26 EU member states and the European Commission will allow London and Dublin to simply codify a ‘no infrastructure’ agreement amongst themselves and then ‘drop the backstop’ is, to quote one senior EU official briefed on the idea, “insane”.

Not insane, but desperate. Boris Johnson in his column in the DT starts with the observation that the Backstop must go. Writing about the parliamentary machinations of wreckers, he makes three points which our Remainers, be they MPs, be they MSM writers, would do well to heed:

“The first is that this country must leave the EU, by law, on March 29. That was not just what the people voted for in 2016; it was what Parliament voted for overwhelmingly. […] If we are now so feeble as to say to the British people that we can no longer go through with this, and that we must delay or extend Article 50, I believe that the reaction would be a vicious and unparalleled contempt for the whole political class; and the same point should be made to anyone so fatuous as to suggest that the answer is a general election.” (my bold)

Exactly. He continues:

“The second giant fact is that the Prime Minister’s deal has been not just thrown out, but kicked into orbit – rejected by the biggest margin in parliamentary history. It is an ex-deal. It is dead, defunct, deceased. It has shuffled off this mortal coil and gone to the great Valhalla of irrelevant and superseded international agreements […] It will never get through Parliament because it is fundamentally anti-democratic, and would mean that the UK would come out of the EU but end up being very largely run by the EU – unless we were willing to surrender control of Northern Ireland, which no British government could, would or should even contemplate.” (my bold)

BoJo hammers this home with his third point:

“The deal is not capable of getting through: keep that in your head, and then focus on the third giant fact, which is that the answer does not lie in Parliament, but in Brussels. In so far as it is necessary to do a deal to leave the EU, that deal cannot be done with our legislators – mighty though they be. The relationship is with the other 27 countries.” (my bold)

The most important point is the first one: if Brexit is prevented by Parliament, then the consequences for the contract between us, the people, the sovereign, and our elected representatives thwarting our will are going to be dire.

Yesterday I wrote about the groundswell of opposition by Tory members, while Labour is reported to have lost 150,000 members – something which the Labour Party denies … One gets the impression that our ‘betters’ in the HoC, the MSM and Whitehall are in denial, that they are not reading the signs and believe that something similar to the ‘Gilets Jaunes’ couldn’t possibly happen here. Well, to be fair, our MSM are busily not reporting much on that. However, the IMF of all entities has a stark warning (see here). While they are concerned about there not being enough money to shore up the banks in a recession given the protests, this point is well made:

“Anger in countries such as the US, France and Britain could make the next global downturn far worse, according to the International Monetary Fund. It is concerned that global organisations and national governments are no longer seen as being on the side of the people.”

Just so!

As promised, here’s the quote. It’s from yesterday’s Marr show. Note that it’s no longer about a ’meaningful’ vote but about an ‘indicative’ one – whatever that’s supposed to mean:

“[…] when questioned by BBC host Andrew Marr on the possibility of Parliament to hold “indicative votes” on the various Brexit outcomes proposed by MPs for the Government to implement, Dr Fox responded with a crucial question defining the key role of Government.He said: “And what if Parliament, which is a Remain Parliament let’s remember, was to pass a motion that effectively stopped us leaving the European Union? Is the Government in this country the servant of Parliament or is it the servant of the people?” The question left Mr Marr speechless […]” (my bold)

Our MPs and the rest of the MSM are of course equally speechless!

In their minds, we are the servants … it’s time to show them we aren’t!

 

Print Friendly, PDF & Email