Will Ms May receive St Valentine’s Day cards? I doubt it, not when I see what’s on the cards for her today!

We alerted you yesterday (see here) on serious underhand dealings by the Government whose motion the HoC will vote on later today has taken on board an amendment meant to prevent the No Deal Brexit.

Tomorrow has now arrived – and the Government has, so far, not budged. It lead to today’s headline in The Express that 80 Tories will not vote for Ms May’s motion. The DT (paywalled) observes this morning:

“Theresa May is braced for another damaging defeat in the Commons on Thursday after Tory Eurosceptics accused her of ruling out a no deal Brexit.The European Research Group of Conservative Brexiteers says it cannot support a Government motion being put to a vote on Thursday after describing Mrs May’s position as “madness”. Senior sources within the ERG said the group would abstain, and with Labour expected to vote against the motion, it will mean yet another Brexit defeat for Mrs May just 43 days before Britain is due to leave the EU. The result of the vote will be purely symbolic, as it will not be legally binding, but a defeat would be a setback for Mrs May as she tries to persuade Brussels to change the Brexit deal.” (my bold)

Jonathan Isaby, in his daily email newsletter for BrexitCentral, reports:

“The Prime Minister’s official spokesman was forced to deny that no-deal was being taken off the table, giving the media the following explanation: “What the motion reflects is the position the Prime Minister set out after those votes, which is the Parliament wants the UK to leave with a deal, but in order to do so it requires us to secure legally-binding changes in relation to the backstop. No-deal is an eventuality we wish to avoid, but one we continue to plan for. Does no-deal remain on the table? The answer is yes.“ (my bold)

Hands up all those who now understand the Government’s position!  Me, I am full of admiration for the collection of fluffy, obfuscating expressions Ms May’s spokesman has used to construct this statement. Jonathan Isaby also draws this conclusion:

“So as it stands, the Government motion could be defeated tonight although, not being a substantive motion, that would have no direct consequences. However, in terms of optics, it would suggest to those observing proceedings in Brussels that the PM is again struggling to hold together the fragile coalition that is the parliamentary Conservative party and command a majority in the House of Commons.” (my bold)

This is not the first time that I wonder what Ms May actually wants to achieve, and it’s not the first time that I ask myself why she and her Svengali Olly Robbins are so blind in their wish to keep us in that they have no regard for how they thrash our country on the world stage.

How disastrous their devious, underhand dealings are for the wellbeing of our country – a functioning economy surely is the basis for that! – is explained by Allister Heath in today’s DT (paywalled) who asks:

“Remind me: what’s so great about the single market and the single currency again? The latest economic statistics from the eurozone are appalling, and point to a continent that is sleepwalking into a catastrophic recession. Our own establishment is too busy self-flagellating to have noticed, even though a eurozone meltdown would not only hurt British businesses and workers but could transform the Brexit negotiations.”

Yes, well, anyone who has watched our MPs ‘perform’ knows that their economic knowledge isn’t even tending to ‘basic’, it’s non-existent. So of course, as long as they can flagellate not just ‘self’ but the opposition, they prefer doing that, grandstanding about ‘The People”, rather than educating themselves by reading business articles. I believe anyway that most of them must be functioning illiterates because, apart from tweeting, all they do is regurgitating what they’ve been told by their ‘advisers’. Thinking for themselves? Forget it! Allright, there are some honourable exemptions, but we can count them on the fingers of one hand.

Allistair Heath continues, giving us some numbers:

“If being part of the single market and customs union mattered so much more than any other policy, the eurozone would have boomed. Yet it didn’t, and the voters know they have been sold a pup. If you want to see proper growth, you need to turn to the emerging world, to China (which has multiplied the size of its economy in extraordinary fashion), to India, to Singapore, to Israel (up 98 per cent). Of course, the UK has underperformed these past two years; and yes, Brexit uncertainty, compounded by the Government’s incompetence, was one important reason. Yet this brief period of EU overperformance is ending. Eurozone industrial production was down a calamitous 4.2 per cent, year‑on-year in December, led by a 6.7 per cent collapse in Spain, 5.5 per cent in Italy and 3.9 per cent in Germany. French industry’s crisis was less pronounced at minus 1.7 per cent; Britain did slightly better again, by shrinking only 1.2 per cent. “ (my bold)

Where are the Remainers refuting these numbers? If it’s still not obvious that the whole Remain conglomeration lives with Alice in her Wonderland then I don’t know …

Allister Heath concludes:

“One thing is certain: another eurozone crisis would strengthen the Brexiteers’ resolve, even if Britain is also affected. As a tangible EU failure, it would more than cancel out the warnings of Project Fear. It would make Eurosceptics even more sanguine about a no-deal departure. […] If we had a competent government, these are the sorts of discussions it would be having. […] Instead, there is nothing: no plan, no strategy, no reaction. But at some point, and soon, the British public will notice what is happening to the eurozone, and it will remember why it voted Leave. Woe betide the Tories if they betray Brexit under such circumstances.” (my bold)

There’s this saying that one ought not to ascribe to malice what is in fact sheer incompetence. I think we’re now seeing an unholy mixture of both incompetence and malice.

Anyway – if you want to see ‘blood on the floor’, book your place to watch today’s HoC debate and don’t miss watching the voting later this evening!

 

 

 

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