Thursday, 18 April 2019

This is the news

Once, before the war, the BBC news reader on the wireless announced
Good evening. Today is Good Friday. There is no news.
This will never happen again. There is always news now and the state broadcaster saying 'Today is Good Friday' would attract criticism from the left-wing newspapers.

Today is Maundy Thursday in the Western Church and there is, as ever, plenty of news.

Brexit has divided British in a way no political issue has since - for a few days - Suez in 1956. Remainers will not go out on dates with Leavers. Very interestingly, it seems to be becoming a wider “culture war”, according to a Politico poll.

Leave voters of all parties in the East Midlands and North West, the poll says, are much more likely to think "standing up for common sense and tradition", "being tough on crime" and restricting immigration important, while Remain voters in London are much more relaxed about immigration and value "being part of an international community’ and "protecting the environment for future generations".


The Euro elections will be a sort of second referendum. 


If the votes for the Brexit Party and Ukip combined come to half the total votes, no more will be heard about a second referendum. 

Today's polls show Nigel Farage's new party, the Brexit Party, will win the Euro-elections in the UK. This is what I had assumed. It means it looks like it will win the battle with his old party, Ukip, to be the main Brexit party. 

The Conservatives will certainly not be seen as the Brexit party until they choose a leader who believes in Brexit and is reasonably happy to leave the EU with no deal if necessary.  For the Conservatives, the Euro-elections are a chronicle of a death foretold.


Most of the Tory front bench and a majority of Tory MPs backed Remain in the 2016 referendum (185 to 138) but they have the task of taking us out, by or against their will.

Tory cabinet minister Matt Hancock, who was strongly for Remain, says that the Tories are “finished” if they become “only a Brexit party”, but they will also be finished if they do not achieve a real Brexit and if it is a terrible failure.

They have the option if they make Brexit a success of being a party that appeals to Leavers who traditionally voted Labour, but they made a terrible mess in the 2017 of the strategy of being Labour Lite. They would do well appealing to social conservative voters, but I think the modern Tory party would die rather than do that. Die they well might.
Brexiteers will mostly vote for the two Brexit, parties but will the Labour party advocate a second referendum? If not, it will be hard for Remainers to register their wish to remain, except by voting for the discredited Lib Dems or, where they can, another small party that backs a second referendum. The misnamed Change party will do, but it is not ready to fight many seats as far as I know.

The Labour left is also split. The communists and the far left want Brexit. Controversial former far left MP George Galloway wrote on Twitter 

“Given the nature of Labour’s Euro-fanatic candidates list, and the crucial juncture we have reached in the fight for the full implementation of the Brexit referendum result, and for one-time only, I will be supporting @Nigel_Farage in next months elections.”
Climate change protests, which the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan supports, blocked important streets for the fourth day in central London. A poll in the Times this morning shows 52 percent of people opposing the protests and 36 percent in favour. One third of people are therefore backing illegal direct action for political reasons. All right, we are talking about blocking traffic, not rioting, but still..

The protesters are probably also Remainers almost to a man (person). They represent Remain Britain. No-one in Leave Britain thinks of arranging protests against mass migration. If they did so, they would be considered in shockingly bad taste and far right. Yet migration is changing the world more certainly than global warming and, unlike putative climate change, could easily be prevented by human agency. 

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