All bets are off

Punters at the racecourse tear up their betting slips, quite possibly curse loudly and almost certainly regret their losing choices. But no matter how close the photo finish, they don’t then go to the bookies and demand to be paid out anyway. Because when they lose, as undignified as losing may be, they accept their losses and move on. Maybe they decide to stop gambling altogether. Maybe they dig into their pockets and have another go. Whatever, they lost; they accept that simple fact.

In the hustle and bustle of our busy lives millions lose something every day. Sometimes it’s the little things, like their bus pass, car keys, or that top secret defence file; sometimes it’s bigger stuff such as their battle against anxiety, obesity… cancer. But ultimately, for most of us, losing is just another facet of life itself and very few of use lose our shit the way the massed ranks of the remain mobs go about business.

Mass movements don’t spring from nowhere, there needs to be a catalyst. The current trend to bow before Saint Greta of No-Nobel arose because she inspired thousands of credulous children to believe in her imperfect understanding of climatological trends. All very innocent if a bit worrying. But Extinction Rebellion is made of sterner stuff and deliberately conflate unconnected issues to weave a narrative of societal breakdown with which to attack the very thing which allows them the lives they have; capitalism. For make no mistake, this is their true aim.

Individual people can and do concoct crackpot theories, theories which are readily dismissed by most audiences. But repeat an untruth often enough and it starts to have an impact. If ‘everybody’ is saying it, maybe there is some truth in it? Partial truths, conjecture, a dash of charisma and a heavy helping of doomsday prophecy and all of a sudden we turn into Chicken Licken. The man on the telly said there will be mass starvation… so it must be true; it was on the telly. In colour!

The massed ranks of remain didn't just spontaneously rise up to oppose Brexit. We are expected to accept that the hordes who regularly shuffle, dance and screech their way around London’s streets of a weekend have independently converged on the capital to show how their loss was the wrong loss; how their vote was somehow more important than our vote. But it’s just not true; they were 'radicalised' by a concerted effort from the establishment, the media and academia. The people who hold the strings; the people who control communication the people who write the news.

I’m not claiming any greater prescience for those of us who voted leave. I even accept the premise that the more ‘educated’ tended to vote to remain; why wouldn’t they, as many of them derive a living from the exactly the kind of non-jobs that arise from acceptance of ‘progressive’ policies and exactly the kind of overtly managed society we were at least partly voting against.

The numbers for leave were and probably still are greater than the numbers for remain. But the EU acolytes have control of the narrative and that narrative has been relentless. If you come out for Brexit you are derided as primitive, thuggish, xenophobic, racist and bordering on being, if not actually swastika-bearing, Nazis. If you voted to leave the EU, you are informed, it is you who is responsible for ‘the rise of the far right’, that fictitious bogeyman conjured up by the same men on the telly. You are sowing hatred and division.

But it’s just not true. We simpletons who voted to leave were doing nothing more than expressing a preference, as we were asked to do. Had the losing side accepted the result which, against the relentlessly negative tide of apocalyptic predictions, was remarkably emphatic (imagine if Project Fear had not dominated the airwaves?) we would not now be where we are. We would be pushing ahead, getting on with our lives and most divisions would already be resolved.

A book for Hammond and Grieve

But Dominic Grieve and Philip Hammond, among many others will not let it go. They have lost, but they still cling onto those losing betting slips, hoping against all previous experience, that this time the bookies will pay out. If they end up getting another delay, in prolonging the agony, in winding people up to boiling point with unjustified hope, in fomenting ever more extreme division in our already fractured society, then come the day we finally get to leave the EU we will know exactly who to blame for the far greater loss to us all, the loss of trust.

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...

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.