Whitehall: here be Remainers
It’s amazing – it’s stunning – it’s suspicious: the speed with which Johnson named a successor to Lord Frost who officially resigned on Saturday evening. We’ve written about it here yesterday. The successor to Lord Frost is the current Foreign Secretary, Ms Liz Truss. The news of her ‘instalment’ came out yesterday evening and the MSM reported it here and paywalled here and here.
This announcement is amazing because Ms Truss has already got other portfolios in addition to being the Foreign Secretary, such as International development and Women and Equality. And now Brexit … ‘workaholic’ doesn’t even begin to describe it. I wonder if her predecessor, Mr Dominic Raab, would have been given the Brexit portfolio had he still been Foreign Secretary. I doubt it. Someone else who was involved in Brexit negotiations when Lord Frost was still in office was Mr Gove. I wonder if he was offered that portfolio and declined or if he was offered it at all.
Now the amazing Ms Truss who has topped the popularity poll of Tory party members is taking on the ‘get Brexit done’ mantle of Johnson. Did she take this on in order to consolidate her Tory Party leadership position? Or did clever Johnson hand her this portfolio as a poisoned chalice, as Paul Goodman argues in ConHome (link)? Remember that Goodman has regarded Frosty’s resignation as an attempt to knife Johnson in the back.
This announcement is stunning because of the apparent speed with which it happened. Anyone who isn’t currently living in a cave “because:Omicron”, bereft of access to the MSM, knows that Johnson and his current covid tsar Javid are ‘thinking day and night’ about Omicron, the NHS, and implementing or not their ‘Plan C’. The SAGEs are doing their best to make it so and the covid MSM are in full-on ‘Fear Porn’ mode.
So how come Johnson found the time to make such an important decision? On the weekend even, a weekend where Parliament is in recess, where ministers are presumably enjoying life in their grace-and-favour homes! Of course, with modern technology, all things are possible, even an incredibly fast appointment. However, the speed with which this was done raises a few questions.
For example: No 10 knew well before Lord Frost’s letter was made public that he was going to resign. Javid actually said so yesterday on TV – here’s the clip if you must. So Johnson had ample time to canvas his ministers to find out who’d want to step into Frosty’s shoes. That means we’ve been treated to a No 10 propaganda coup this weekend, to another dead cat, to divert MSM attention away from Lockdown restrictions and from that ongoing scandal of ‘Partygate’. The utterly astounding fact that there were no leaks from the sieve-like government, full of babbling ‘sources’, would tend to indicate this.
The other question is: has Johnson now washed his hands off Brexit, given that he’s handed the Brexit negotiation back to the Foreign Office and the Remain Mandarins dwelling therein? Does he now see his proper role as emperor of both covid and net zero? Is that how his bedroom PM wishes him to proceed? Or has something else, something suspicious, been going on?
This announcement is suspicious because it confirms to me that the Whitehall mandarins are taking back control over the whole Johnson government. They have domesticated Sunak whose tax policies were one of the reasons why Lord Frost resigned. He listed the NI rise in his resignation letter. They have domesticated Javid at the DHSC, pushing for Omicron panic and lockdowns. That’s another reason Lord Frost gave in his resignation letter. I don’t need to name the Home Office and Ms Patel – Lord Frost didn’t – but it has been obvious that Ms Patel’s mandarins are hugely successful in blocking any attempt to get to grips with the invasion flooding ehre across the Channel.
Yesterday morning I already voiced my suspicions that the fine hands of Foreign Office mandarins were behind Frosty’s resignation, that his Brexit team had already been subverted (link). Elsewhere I surmised that Ms Truss had a good chance of supplanting Johnson in a leadership contest because her mandarins were ‘working’ with her, that she was and is a highly domesticated mandarin puppet. Her success at Trade was due not least to the fact that the trade deals she negotiated were all following the lines of our pre-Brexit deals, based on EU treaties.
Confirmation of my suspicion comes in this piece by Paul Goodman, explaining that the FO has now finally got back the Brexit portfolio. However, he also points out, carefully, that Johnson could have kept that portfolio out of the FO, but:
“That he didn’t takes us to another view of the appointment. That he is now weak, Truss is strong, she wanted European policy back at the Foreign Office…and has duly got her way. We will find out soon enough how energetically she pushed for this outcome – if at all.” (link)
Ms Truss has now got a power base in Whitehall, supported by her mandarins. Without their support she’d not have been able to grab this Brexit portfolio. The DT points out that she is working on her leadership campaign, that she may spend more effort on this than on Brexit, that it raises
“[…] questions about how much time she will have to dedicate to negotiations, or to plotting a leadership challenge. She is understood to have dined with potentially supportive backbenchers at her Mayfair club, 5 Hertford Street, in recent months, while her acolytes have established a “Liz for Leader” WhatsApp group.” (paywalled link)
These machinations have been going on for some time now. Remember that Ms Truss got her new job in September – sufficient time, methinks, for her mandarins to implement their Remain plans, with the quid-pro-quo of their support for her leadership campaign. I wonder if the FO mandarins would have been so eager to work against Lord Frost had Dominic Raab still been the Foreign Secretary. He was made to go because of the Afghanistan scandal. Being a very suspicious and cynical old cow I now wonder if his string-pullers, the mandarins, had given him insufficient information ‘on purpose’, not that one would ever find their fingerprints …
It goes without saying that the EU ‘diplomats’ are jubilant about this development. RemainCentral’s Brussels correspondent penned a report which throws a nasty light on the anti-Brexit forces Frosty had to battle with. I leave you with this quote which doesn’t bode well for the ongoing NI and Brexit negotiations:
“The departure of “Frosty, the No-man” has been warmly welcomed in Brussels as an early Christmas present. Lord Frost’s “mad man” tactics and regularly avowed undiplomatic views on the European Union were not liked — and nor was he. His nickname, a bitter play on the Christmas song, was far from affectionate. “This is a great present, Frosty has melted at last. Is there a Brexit thaw in Downing Street at last? We hope so,” said one joyful European official with scars on his back from the Brexit minister’s negotiating tactics.” (link, paywalled)
Brexit has now returned to the Remain FO mandarins’ hands. It has become a playball in the leadership machinations of the ambitious Ms Truss. Johnson has given up, else he’d have done his utmost to keep Lord Frost on board. Is Johnson even fighting to remain as PM or is he already washing his hands of the whole package? And will our victory in June 2016 turn to bitter ashes thanks to the long breath of Remain, ensconced in the Westminster swamp, from Whitehall to Parliament and the Labour Party?
There might be a Merry Christmas for some. For us, the outlook is grim and is becoming more grim for the New Year. Meanwhile, let’s enjoy the Christmas Holidays as best we can and remember: the days will get longer after the winter solstice tomorrow.
‘His proper role is emperor of covid and net zero’
Yes. I suspect his missus has succeeded in persuading him of this.
PS. Correction; “In the early 1990’s ” should read “from the early 1990’s on through 2000 and beyond”.
Off topic but lets celebrate a very brave and determined ex policemans fight against the increasingly woke police authorities.
Yes it sounds to me as the police will continue to “honour the law” in the breach”
They will continue to do it in “private” just as Jeff suggests ( I take it he’s already had the warning for suggesting it)
Just remind me, do fingerprints of the innocent still get removed? And how would we know?
Johnson heads a lame duck government now and nearly everyone treats it as a joke and with outright disdain. I can’t take him seriously at all nor any of his so called ministers. And as for Raab attempting to explain that this so called party in May 2020 was a business meeting and that everyone was dressed in suits is utter crap. There was us, the majority of the British population sticking to the Lockdown rules and regulations thinking it was all in our best interests, and there is the government having parties from May until December indoors and outside sipping glasses of red wine. The conservatives take us for absolute mugs and even though they were on the receiving end of a right old thumping last week at the by election, its business as usual with the accompanying lying and cover ups. Johnson needs to be forced out of office, and pretty soon as well. I hope those letters are piling up on Sir Graham Brady’s desk.
Where does it say anything in the rules or even the law about moral authority ?
Both Biden and Macron are suffering in the opinion polls, but I bet they both get to the end of their full tenure in office
Boris ain’t going to shift it’s just Starmer hot air
Patrick Henningsen says that that the New Year might well see Hilary Clinton back in the White House. Blair as PM here Peter Hitchens thinks, and her as POTUS !!!!!!
Just when we didn’t think things could get any worse !!!!!
I think it’s time we started putting a face and name on these shadowy “mandarins” who are wrecking our country. I’ll work on it.
How delicious watching the wretched Tory party tear itself apart!
I share that sentiment entirely; my contempt and disgust at that pit of fraudulent unprincipled snakes is more than you can imagine ; getting rid of it would see off so much of the smoke and mirrors that have wasted our time for decades; but as Viv warns, we want Labour and the whole mainstream party stranglehold destroyed simultaneously. (Peter Hitchens has suggested that Blair might come back as PM !!!!!!!!!!!).
How can we make sure they all sink together? There’s a commenter on ConWom “Pretty Polly” who claims that John Redwood holds the key to this, having the evidence of the murky dealings by Blair and other PM’s and high ranking British figures with Soros and others in the early1990’s. Involving the sale for a song of firm QunetiQ . Polly claims that if John Redwood revealed all this it would take down Tory and Labour parties together.
Other commenters on ConWom say thar her suggestion is not practical, that it would destroy JR while the criminals carry on as usual.
If only a spotlight could be shone upon all this .
Goodness me mary (at 10.26am), J.R. eh?
What do YOU make of his ‘Brexit Elf’ Xmas story this year?
Wind back his diary if you missed it.
It could be simpler than that Viv
I’m sure I heard a comment in the news reader section of GB news in the morning a few days ago where it was said ( and it goes something like this)
“Lord Frost has warned there are difficulties with the removal of the ECJ due to worries from the business community”
I have an idea that the section that is worried is ‘the City’ who know they will be excluded if it goes.
I would guess he Frosty had received orders to capitulate.
Who best to take over his job, but somebody who was a Commercial Manager with She’ll, an accounts Director with Cable and Wireless and connections with business and trade in government
To me, she’s an obvious shoe in for the job – I wonder if they will get the news out of the capitulation before the New Year.
God help Northern Ireland and the break up of the UNited Kingdom
Liz Trus is the one that thinks British Workers are the laziest in the world. Open borders fanatic and fake conservative. All those global Britain speeches are code for global liberalism presented as ‘Freer’ or ‘New Liberalism’ but AKA New Labour. Taking the tory party further down the toilet bend.
The Tory party has been heading for the sewer for decades. Only one solution – full flush it down there where it really belongs.
The Civil Service. The Queen has always been their curb as well as their protector.But the CS works in centuries not he knee jerl time frame of politicians and the mob. The power blocs to oppose the CS such as Army, Church, Politicians, Police, the Law,, the professions ( Law,Accounting Medicine, ), the Press, ) Are all now in one form or another incorporated such as MOD, Home Office etc,,, or reduced to ineffective such as Church, Press, etc, All this time the CS has grown bloated, more powerful and cleverer, and acquired powerful Allies in EU and USA Administrations..#
Is the time Ripe ..? You tell me
The Queen has gone along with anything she is advised to do. She cannot be relied on to even uphold even her own Coronation Oath. At the end of the day it is down to the people to uphold their own sovereignty and freedoms not monarchy. There are more of us than them!
Everything is up for grabs and so far the billionaires, professional and managerial classes withing the corporations, big government, foundations, charities, NGOs are playing a blinder in furthering their agenda.