The Berc is back...

It’s been a quiet few weeks from the pint-sized poison dwarf of Parliament but suddenly, up he pops and rants that he will “fight with every breath in my body” to prevent the government from carrying out the expressed will of the electorate And ‘Spreadsheet Phil’ Hammond has – by a feat of uncanny synchronicity- crept out of his crypt to pen an op-ed in The Times in which he says again that ‘the PM has no mandate for a no deal Brexit.’ So here we go again for round four-hundred and thirty-four (or thereabouts) of Project Fear, this time with added loathing.

But look, this ‘deal’ was ever an illusion and as has been pointed out tirelessly by those of us who voted to leave, the Withdrawal Agreement isn’t even a deal. The EU has made it clear that no deal is on offer except the invitation to surrender all negotiating leverage and meekly discuss terms of our effectively handing back sovereignty to Brussels. Because, in order to have any access to any supposed benefits of the single market, we would have to accept free movement, legislative oversight, etc, etc, all of which is exactly what we voted to leave.

And yes, sovereignty was the principle issue. Immigration and border control figured heavily in the campaigns because the power to set our own policy in these areas is fundamental to national sovereignty, but even that ambition was hijacked by our own slimy, sleazy swamp-dwellers. Simple sovereignty soon became ‘Parliamentary Sovereignty’ and as quickly as the decision had been contracted out to the voters, it was seized back by those who were the problem in the first place. Parliament has shown its hand so clearly it is a wonder the gates have yet to be stormed.

Formerly, the EU was seen as the identifiable enemy of our freedoms; the unaccountable technocrats deeply in thrall to an ideology that was ‘of Europe’, maybe, but not of many European nations, especially not the British. But the question of the referendum was also about control and the need for the people of any country to feel they were being heard and been represented by those who could be replaced if they overstepped their authority. The EU was merely a proxy for government everywhere; what is happening in Hong Kong, France and Kashmir are all expressions of rejection of imposed rule.

You can plead all you like that no deal was not what we voted for and that yes, a deal should have been easy – regulatory alignment, harmonised standards, common values and all of that – but we are where we are and the EU has made it plain as can be that negotiations are over. But that’s not good enough for Hammond, with this being released from No. 10 and tweeted by Sebastian Payne of the FT: "Hammond and Clarke sabotaged the UK’s preparations to leave… They drove the country into a dangerous cul de sac with a clock ticking towards Oct 31 because they never accepted the referendum result and they fought to overturn it…”

Bercow's legacy

I reasonably expect and fervently wish that, should we ever actually leave the wretched and institutionally corrupt European Union, all-pervasive and extensive investigations will be undertaken into each and every quisling politician involved in what I shall dub Bercowism. And I hope that once those investigations are concluded the results are made fully public and the guilty brought to book, not just ushered away with a nice, neat peerage.  ...Over my dead body, Bercow has all but said.  If that’s what it takes, John... if that’s what it takes.