No Compromise

None of the interminable discussions, negotiations, debates or demonstrations was ever going to result in a ‘deal’ acceptable to both sides because each side wants polar opposite outcomes. And make no mistake, there are only two sides here; for all their bluster those seeking to agree a way of getting the Withdrawal Agreement passed are (whatever they may say, or even believe) signing off on a way to remain under the thumb of the unaccountable burghers of Brussels. Those who wish to leave have always known that anything less than a complete exit is not Brexit.

The indicative votes, the amendments the extraordinary refusal of Parliament to recognise that a compromise is never going to happen when every ballot is pretty much split down the middle are all evidence that what we voted on were the only two possible outcomes. Any form of customs union, single market membership and in particular any arrangement which allows a foreign court to have supremacy of British law is far worse than either extreme.

We know that if we stay in our voice is but one against, currently, 27. But pretending to leave – as all compromises will necessarily be – will silence us forever. One argument for remain has been about how our standing in the world would diminish outside, but Leavers don’t point out vociferously enough that the entire purpose of the EU is to diminish individual national influence. The half-arsed, half-out capitulation that May was handed by Merkel extinguishes that influence altogether. Out, we genuinely would have a bigger voice than in.

On trade, the future is a veiled, cloudy affair and we may well make enormous leaps on the outside which would be impossible restrained by the EU. Inside we could expect at least a form of moribund consistency. Surely we are better than that; much better. Some of our fellows would argue that we are all Europeans now, but equal numbers would most vehemently reject that notion with a rousing chorus of Rule Britannia. The two sentiments are profoundly irreconcilable.

Currently the House of  Lords is also pretending to be grown up and maybe their cumulative years has injected a slight check on the unseemly haste with which they were initially tempted to rush through the wrecking bill cooked up by Letwin and Cooper. But make no mistake, although they have stopped to draw breath, pass it they will, come Monday. And where will that put us? Oh yes, back in the hands of the EU – quell surprise.

It is little wonder then that supporters of independence now judge Parliament to be, to all intents and purposes, illegitimate. They want to pretend to honour democracy by ignoring a democratic vote and framing a new offer, but the second referendum they propose will only contain two options: Leave in name only and accept second-class citizenship as EU slaves, or stay and help to shape the laws that will ultimately enslave everybody equally; suffer alone or recruit others to our misery.

There were only two options on the ballot

Even the most Remain of Remainers must be able to see that it would be a Hobson’s choice and our flaccid Parliamentary members are too weak or too venal to walk away from this trap of their own making. The only true choice for Britain has to be between remaining in the EU or leaving the EU. If only such an in/out referendum were possible. If only the British people could somehow indicate to us which they would prefer. Come on, chaps, Parliament is listening...

Feet of Clay

Now we know, beyond any rational doubt, that our elected leaders are venal greasy pole climbers without a shred of decency or competence, isn’t it time for action? Not a general election, not a re-shuffle and certainly not a Parliamentary debate about the way forward – consulting Jeremy Corbyn, for fuck’s sake? We need a Cromwell moment and the whole Palace of Westminster needs to be shut down, its sitting tenants evicted, turned out onto the streets and an entire new order imposed.

What, no government? Well why not? The government clearly has no power, abuses what authority it has and is a primary cause of division in the country. Labour offer no useful opposition, seeming to believe that simply opposing is their primary function and proposing no workable alternatives to the same tired old tropes. Fairness, equality, social justice and all those nebulous, airy-fairy notions are chimera; there is no such thing in human society.

But what we do have is an ability to exploit opportunity and the total shit-storm in our supposed seat of democracy is ripe for exploitation. The party system, as was, has come to its inevitable end. Neither party offers a genuinely acceptable way forward and no matter who is in power it constantly has to battle opposing ideologues to make even the slightest progress. Progressive education and the lunacy of cultural relativism has created a population easier than ever to manipulate, easier than ever to penalise. The police are discredited, the judiciary exposed as frauds. The scene is set for chaos.

And maybe chaos is exactly the tonic we need. Let the civil service and local authorities carry on with running the day-to-day business as best they can and set the dogs on Westminster, political correctness, the university training grounds for political malcontents, common purpose and all the pointless agitators for ultra-minority power. Release the vigilantes, set free the conditioned minds and let’s have one massive societal punch up.

Oh, there will be no clear winners, but – apart from the carnage (and you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs) – a period of utter, desperate, dog-eat-dog, fear and uncertainty might just be the catharsis we need. Find out whose side you are really on, not whose oily words salve your political theology. It’s perhaps not ideal but it’s what seems to be happening anyway; might as well get it over with.

May announces latest genius idea...

Clear out all the old, corrupted crap, usher in the new, the fresh, the untainted. It might still be rubbish, but at least it will be new rubbish and who knows what might emerge from it? In Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has starred for three years in a television comedy (Servant of thePeople) about a man who accidentally becomes president. Right now Mr Zelenskiy is front runner to actually become president. Maybe we could do with a bit of that.

Troy

On what should have been Day 2 of UK Year 0000 PB (Post Brexit) the world is going slightly mad over the case of Dominic Grieve and his losing the confidence of his constituency association. MPs are queueing up to wring their caps and intone solemn eulogies to the career of a political giant. To which the general public are saying, Dominic who? Outside Westminster he is an also-ran, only today grabbing the headlines because of what many see as his sheer treachery in seeking to overturn Brexit. But what went wrong?

We use to scoff at the sight of natives rending their garments on the newsreels, sobbing in public and ululating in grief and despair, but since the canonisation of Saint Diane, the British have become mawkish and have taken to repeating the self-same public displays we once used to find so quaint. When the French marched en grève, burning sheep and blocking roads we used to chuckle, remarking that this wasn’t how the British did things. And having invented sport, as such, we were paragons of fair play – play up and play the game and a friendly ovation for the victors, should we lose. In short, we slightly despised all that foreign emotion.

But now look; the British sense of fair play used to mean that we may not have agreed with you but short of coming round to your way of thinking we could respect your view and respectfully defer to you winning the debate. Agreeing to disagree characterised adult discourse and a certain pragmatic acceptance that sometimes a decision made was better than a decision deferred and spilled milk was something only Johnny Foreigner would cry over. How things have changed.

Had Remain won the referendum – an outcome most of us expected – we would have grumbled a little, maybe even protested a bit, but most of us would – having had our say – retreated to the sidelines and politely clapped you off the pitch. We’d have been British about it. We certainly wouldn’t have seized the ball, declared extra time and carried on playing after sunset, the ref blowing his whistle for all he was worth.

But of course, I’m living in the past. I’m imagining what I believe would have happened had the competition been between only the British, when in reality this was always between Britons and Europeans. Grieve is not behaving like a son of Albion, but displaying the petulance of a Spaniard, the disdain of the haughtiest Frenchman and the arrogance and sense of superiority that comes naturally  to the Teutonic race.

Oh, of course we can trust them...

Grieve and his ilk are no longer British, if ever they were; they are Europeans, first and foremost. It is one thing to infiltrate a foreign power with double agents from outside, but quite something when you can get their own governing class to betray the country without even offering anything in return. Beware of Grieves bearing gifts - our Parliament is nothing more than an EU Trojan horse. Time to burn it down.

Prepare for Government?

Another day – Day 1002 – in the Brexit psychodrama and more turmoil. There are deep suspicions that the latest move – ExtensionGate – is intended to precipitate a destabilised Parliament into forcing a general election, or a form of coup. Deep conspiracy indeed, yet given the open hostility towards any notion of independence, not so far-fetched as to be disregarded altogether. In the background you can almost hear the collective groan of Leavers as they see what is a clear ploy to deny their celebration.

Then there’s the petition to revoke Article 50. Remainers were thumping the air yesterday as it rapidly passed the two million signatures mark, while some prominent leavers insisted it was being infiltrated by foreign powers, Russian bots or the simplicity of casting multiple votes by the use of different email addresses. But of course there is a far simpler explanation and it is possibly at the heart of why Brexit has been the ugly and embarrassing spectacle it has.

Remainers are happy in the right sort of company. Among them are the kind of people who rejoice in the type of ‘diversity’ that brings misery to the communities on which it is thrust. I can’t be only one to have noticed that pretty much every day now the BBC and others broadcast the islamic call to prayer as a preface to any news stories about any islamic issue. We are becoming habituated to  hearing ‘Allah’s snack bar’ no longer as prelude to slaughter but as a plea for peace and understanding. New Zealand is suddenly looking like Iran, forty years ago this year, during the Ayatollah’s Terror.

The media, politics, the organs of state are flush with the kind of bien pensant goodies who love a bit of politically acceptable acquiescence to the demands of cultures different from our own. It makes them good people and they love being part of the herd,with all the other good people. No wonder they were so shocked in June 2016. In their world nobody would even dream of leaving an even bigger club of even lovelier people with only kindness in their heart. Why, only deviants could be averse to sharing the joy.

So, when it comes to protesting ‘austerity’, NHS funding, climate change and Brexit, there is a ready network of the very best of people who will come together and the call to gather will spread far and wide across social and mainstream media, whose lever-pullers are a part of the same group. Stick up an opinion poll in the Guardian, the [not] Independent, Buzzfeed, Facebook, Twitter et al and of course it returns the ‘right’ result. The result they knew it would – you gorgeous, wonderful, lovely, kind, caring saints.

But where are the voices of dissent? They have been largely silenced; from Gordon Brown’s ‘bigoted woman’ to those who agree with everything Nigel Farage says, the message from the media, from the government and more recently from the police and judiciary, is that your opinion is verboten, practically a crime. As a result you don’t possess an acceptable group identity, which means when you look around for support you see bowed heads, mumbling quietly, mostly to themselves. No wonder the referendum was such a shock to the system.

The will to leave is there. The numbers are not only still there, but I suspect, growing. Many who wanted to leave probably didn’t vote because the media told them that remain would win. If we did have a second (actually third) referendum there is a chance the leave majority would increase; it’s a risk remainers really don’t want to take. But Parliament hasn’t had the balls to do what their electors want them to do, so the EU has stepped in to tell them how to proceed with remaining – get rid of May and put up a puppet.

But it won’t solve any problems. Brussels unveiled has a far uglier face than its worshippers imagined and Brexit averted would be a victory for the globalists, so the opposition will not simply fade. The Champagne – or, rather, the English sparkling wine – may stay on ice for another few weeks, months... or even years, but the fight for Brexit will continue.

Westminster – the Motion Picture

We’ve all seen the movie and it is the same every time. Eventually, somebody makes an offer that can’t be refused. The hapless victim turns to others for help, only to find that the friend, the tutor, the mentor, the governor... the president, even, is in cahoots with the mob. The corruption runs both deep and wide and eventually our man has only one choice – confront the issue head-on and employ extreme violence. Shit or bust.

Reason didn’t work. Pragmatic acceptance of the situation fared no better because once the capitulation was acknowledged the demands merely increased; if he’ll put up with this, why not also insist on this? Negotiation never even got started because whatever bargaining chip the protagonist thought he held was utterly defeated by the counter threats. Do as we demand or the kid gets it. Pay up or lose the dog. We pull the strings, you dance, sucker.

Oh, it all started so innocently. What do you want? They asked. We can make your wishes come true. But what seemed like a perfectly simple and amicable agreement soon accrued compound political interest and with each passing day the stakes grew bigger and the stories of what would happen became wilder and more extreme. Everywhere he turned those who he thought were his allies presented their backs. Warm off-the-record words and private promises turned sour as they publicly reneged on commitments vaguely mumbled behind closed doors.

Who profits? Who knows? The murky currents of this malicious crime organisation run deep and strong, but they cannot be completely invulnerable; they must have a weak spot. They think not. Even the miserable henchman senses ultimate triumph: “...with their backs against the wall, the abyss in front of their eyes and a knife on their throat. We are nearly there. If some time is needed after the end of March then that will not be a problem for the 27.” Oh really, Weasel Van Rompuy? Let’s see about that.

Is this what you want? Well, you asked for it...

Act Three: Redemption. Beaten, bloodied, but unbowed, it is finally clear that any deal the mob might make will be worse than the last. Down that route lies utter subjugation and defeat. The thugs will never back down and the intimidation will continue unless something changes. Enter the reluctant hero. And the nuclear option. Never say never. Hasta la vista muchachos. Yippee ki-yay motherfuckers. Our hero pilots the atomic bomb toward the Death Star... mutually assured destruction, our last card...roll the credits.

Treachery on Tour

I once tried to make a living as a salesman. Sharp suit, company car and all the spiel... it was disastrous and cost me a great deal of dignity and self-esteem. I hated it so intensely that my weekends were spent dreading Monday. My problem? I just didn’t believe in what I was selling and knew that a large part of the price was because of the advertising and the fleet of gab-gifted salesmen needed to try and part businesses from hard-earned profits in return for products which, in all honesty, they could get much cheaper elsewhere.

So I really feel for the embarrassing parade of Maybots appearing in the media, backing the atrocious sell-out of a deal. Theresa’s Travesty as it may become known, or The Dog’s Brexit. Now, by all accounts the Prime Minister is to travel the country to try to get the electorate on board with her 'deal'. I can’t think of anything more likely to turn hearts and minds against Theresa May than Theresa May herself. If only she could channel Margaret Thatcher and embark on a tub-thumping, peasant-rousing, anti-EU tour to stir up as much antipathy to the whole project as she can.

But that’s not the plan, is it? It seems clear now that the direction of travel is to preach against no-deal (the actual leaving of the EU, which was voted for) and to frame the choice as her deal or another option. That other option either being remain, which could result in riots, or a second referendum which, whatever the outcome, could result in riots. It could have all been so much simpler had successive governments heeded the concerns of those who voted them into power. When Parliament no longer represents the people, what is the point of representative democracy?

The political classes are of one voice when it comes to their calling out of ‘the rise of the far right’, or when they are being slightly more generous, decrying the spectre of populism. But what is populism if not a cry for help? Voting to leave the EU was intended to remove an excuse, to deny our treacherous ‘leaders’ the option of blaming it on a supranational power. The next step must be to remove from office all those who appear to be unwilling to take responsibility. If you are voted in to represent your constituents concerns but you then hide behind party unity, then we must attack the party system.

Next election what say we refuse to vote for all sitting MPs and vote on a non-party basis for new candidates, based entirely on what they, not their party are selling. It will make little difference that we will end up with a ramshackle coalition of some kind because the Uncivil Service will maintain continuity anyway; Belgium managed without a government for the best part of two years recently and Italy spent decades with revolving door administrations and both are still here. But it might be a start. I say ‘might’...

For the last twenty years at least I've felt as if I were watching a dystopian post-apocalyptic movie about a society whose rulers genuinely lived on another planet, out of touch, out of reach, but with all the power. The extra-terrestrial, May, has brokered a deal which is even worse than many of her critics think because although no-deal means we start with a clean slate we begin from a position of total regulatory alignment for trade; accepting this deal binds our hands forever and makes all future trade dependent on politics, first and foremost.

If you can't define it, can't explain it and 

need to sell it, it's not worth saving.

Where is our Churchill? And don’t say Boris – his rebuttal of May’s deal was self-congratulatory, waffly and full of piffle – even Churchill would say it was overwrought. Right now, whatever you think of him, Tommy Robinson probably has more credibility than most MPs. We need to elect not just the ballot stuffers for discredited parties but genuine, patriotic, energetic agents for change. Let’s look beyond the sales pitch see what a whole new Parliament can achieve – it can hardly be worse than what we have now.

Post Mortem

They killed Brexit. It had a brief life, full of hope and optimism, but it was cut down and flushed into the sewer of history by the massed ranks of the establishment, doing what they could never seem to manage in ‘peacetime’. Unable to formulate successful domestic and foreign policy; unable to broker an amicable settlement between disparate classes; unable to navigate educate, understand or implement the simple desires of the electorate, they were nevertheless able to cobble together a hotch-potch of resistance to something they didn’t want. There is nothing positive in any of this.

Oh, how David Cameron’s inaccurate calculus will come to be despised but they will never make the same mistake again; referenda in EU region NW235, sub-section 6, department B1 (formerly known as the UK)  will henceforth be made illegal, that ban coming into EU-wide application with or without a majority vote. First, quell the Briton and the rest will fall into line. Not only have we been taken for fools, we have shown how easily we chose to adopt that mantle as the largely uncoordinated rabble we are. Simple fools, we wanted a simple enough dream, to leave the cage. But they allowed us briefly to imagine an open door only to then slam it shut in our faces.

Treason May (and treason is not too strong a word) has carefully expunged from political discourse any mention of no-deal (otherwise known as Brexit). The choices have gone from ‘no-deal is better than a bad deal’ to ‘it is my deal or remain’. The political sheep have swallowed it; even former Brexit advocates have actually fallen for Project Fear and just as our former glory as an empire is now derided as the root of all evil in the world, Brexit has become little more than the nasty ambition of ‘far-right’ zealots. The simple and harmless notion of leaving the EU has overnight become so toxic that even the always opportunistic Boris Johnson has vanished from the scene.

Liam Fox has already jumped aboard the May train, Boris will soon follow and we will know the jig is truly up when Jacob Rees-Mogg declares for the government and assists the Withdrawal Agreement over the finishing line. And what a finish it will be. It will be the end of the United Kingdom, which will have handed over all decision-making, all control and all legislature to the new empire of evil, the unaccountable European Union. The enemy. The island of Great Britain, far from being the cradle of democracy and freedom, will be a vassal state and Britons, very much, will be slaves to a foreign master.

It is a glum appraisal, I know, but I am not alone in making it. An opportunity lost, a people betrayed and for what? Ordinarily I am averse to conspiracy theories, preferring to deploy Occam’s Razor and accept that incompetence is a far more likely driver of human outcomes, but this beggars belief. The question was straightforward, the decision was made and all that needed to be done was to part on friendly terms; a genuinely simple split was always not only possible but desirable.

But from the start the establishment – as much as it could rarely agree on anything productive whatsoever – was against it. No effort was expended in seeking to see the positives as their face was already set against it. Little by little the gloss was rubbed away, the excitement dampened and the vision blurred. Day by day they wore down the few allies we had in positions of power. Bit by bit our sovereignty was ceded, no matter what fine words were blasted from makeshift pulpits up and down the land.

Sometimes, the simplest solution...

When it comes to politics, politicians and their disparate beliefs, sworn enemies on either side of the divide can never agree. Logical, useful policies are regularly defeated by the simple intransigence of opposition. Progress is impeded because these warring factions can never work together in the best interests of them all. But when it comes to the worst interests it seems collusion can be made. When it comes to denying democracy it seems a form of unity can be achieved. In trying to understand all of this I once again turn to the faithful, never-fail Occam’s Razor and what do I discover? Usually, complex plotting is beyond the wit of the supposed conspirators, but this time the simplest solution to the conundrum may just be conspiracy after all.

Leave it!

In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Sir Bedevere performs a display of logic comparable to Justine Greening’s second referendum rationale. The contortion she must have gone through to conclude that, despite refusing to recognise the EU referendum – didn’t know what they were voting for, low information, low intelligence, racists and xenophobes, etc – the solution to the impasse is, yes, another referendum.  Why, she must be a witch if she weighs the same as a duck!

What beggars belief still further is how she has been described as a 'senior Tory'? As an MP since 2005, with inclusion in ministerial roles for, as far as I can discern, merely tokenistic reasons, she hardly qualifies as senior. But who believes now that ANYTHING proposed by No.10 isn't staged? “Hey, Justine, do us a favour, love...” And voila, out of the woodwork steps just the next in a weary line of forgotten representatives to sell us on the idea of having-another-look. Even Major is back on the box when he should have stayed in the box.

But what’s the point? Carole Malone tweeted: ”So if there WAS a 2nd referendum and the country voted Leave again - what miracle solution would the Gov come up with then that they can’t come up with now? Government Remainers only want another one because they think it would go their way.” And this is the long and the short of it. Greening’s proposal offered up a three-option trap in the cynical hope that it would split the leave loyalties and deliver a de-facto Remain vote.

The establishment – by which I mean the government itself, the opposition, the judiciary and anybody who is anybody in the Common Purpose mash-up that assumes it has the divine right to rule over us – is offering us a Hobson’s choice: Here’s a stick. I am going to beat you with it. If you wish you may vote for a different stick. Then, when we beat you with whichever choice you made, just remember you voted for it. And if you didn't vote you deserve every last stroke.

They are relentless: Oh but, now we know ‘the deal’ we should vote on it. Now we know that Leave breached electoral rules the result is void anyway. Besides, we know just what staying in means – they have even come up with a set of ONS predictions for ‘hard’ Brexit, ‘soft’ Brexit, Chequers Brexit (Andrex-soft) and Remain. Nobody should be surprised to note that Remain carries no penalty. Pull the other one!

Were we to reverse the referendum (and I very much doubt that fewer would now wish to leave, having seen the utter contempt of the EU towards the very question) we would definitely not proceed regally, unruffled, along the smooth road to riches forecast by the same rabble that have willingly assisted Project Fear from the start. There would be no veto, we would almost certainly be compelled, eventually, to adopt the Euro. We would lose our independent armed forces (such as they are today) and we would become Eurasia’s Airstrip One; a purely vassal state.

No you don't, Mrs May.

There is only one Brexit and it really is the one the majority voted for. The only Brexit that can possibly secure autonomy, self-rule (and when were we EVER asked if we wanted to give that up?) and break us free of the tentacles of the bloc is a Brexit so hard you could bounce tennis balls of it. A Brexit of such granite-like solidity that nothing short of dynamite could blast us back into Brussels’ embrace. You might call it hard Brexit. But to those of us who voted for it, it is just what it said on the ballot. Read our lips; we voted to leave.

To know...

In the oft-quoted sentiment of Voltaire, "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise." Well, on that basis it has to be islam. But that aside, I’m concerned about the way in which we are handling Brexit. After months of tense wrangling, deprecating descriptions of those who voted to leave, expressions of hostile intent towards a post-Brexit Britain and vainglorious pomposity from the burghers in Brussels, all of a sudden Theresa May is declared a saviour.

Heaping praise on her for her resolve – a characteristic for which she is certainly not known in the UK – the Eurocrats declare themselves ready to treat. I can’t be alone in smelling a rat. The process of the public political debate is, as has been observed by many, like a football game between evenly matched sides; the ball goes back and forth interminably and only after extra time and an unsatisfying penalty shoot-out is a result declared.

But like a rigged game we onlookers watch as open goal after open goal is left unscored. We watch as the arguments of one side are adopted by the other and new meanings are imparted to otherwise clear objectives. We want to leave, we said. This became “You voted for Parliamentary sovereignty”. No, we didn’t, we voted to end our thrall to representatives which no longer represented us. There has been no greater treachery than that of the Labour Party; once the great champions of the working class, now mere champagne swilling theoretical socialists, proposing policy for which few have asked.

For the many, not the few says Jeremy Corbyn, then swiftly ignores what the many are clamouring for. Meanwhile on the government side we get a great war of words and the repeated assertion that ‘we did not know what we were voting for’. The fictions of hard and soft Brexit have played out in mid-field, the players oblivious to our insistence that the flouted ‘will of the people’ was simply to rid ourselves of EU control. When one gambit fails the team captains appear to collaborate to confect another; thus Ireland now steps in to take a free kick.

And in all this the biggest casualties are truth, honesty, honour, principal, as one after the other is abandoned in favour of weasel words which obscure and obfuscate, delay and detract from the matter at hand. The language of diplomacy, or as we commoners prefer to call it, lying. We are taken for fools and called it openly. Those few in prominent positions who support our cause – the cause, remember, of the majority of working class people of Britain – are attacked and defamed as somehow working against our better interest; their better interest.

I hold in my hand a piece of paper...

The political class is in cahoots, if not by arrangement – for the sake of appearance – then certainly by instinct. They are united in believing that they know better than we who have to live with their decisions. And they are afraid because Brexit was about more than just leaving a sclerotic and corrupt supranational administration; it was about our rejection of the political status quo. They see their power base quiver and crumble and fight like tigers to keep it. Were Voltaire alive today he would be able to coin another bon mot: To know who they fear, simply find out who they are allowed to denigrate.