'Conservative Party engaged in 'sensible and pragmatic' planning for snap election, deputy chairman admits'

A headline I did not expect to see, in the Daily Telegraph this afternoon. It reads like a parody, but it is no longer possible to write parodies or satire.

Conservative Party engaged in 'sensible and pragmatic' planning for snap election, deputy chairman admits

The lead story in the paper this morning was that half the Tory MPs and ten cabinet ministers wanted to leave the EU quickly without a deal.

The fog in which we find ourselves grows even thicker. Sounds of pain from nearby.

Poor Christopher Booker, who has cancer, writes his farewell to his readers in today's 
Sunday Telegraph. He was anti-EEC and a Brexiteer  avant la lettre but is close to omniscient blogger Richard North, thinks only the Norway option would be practical form of Brexit and anything else disastrous. He might be right.

The first priority of all politicians, with a very few exceptions on a few occasions, unless they are about to retire, is the next election. Therefore talking about Brexit today should start there. 

Labour wants one though it would be split badly in an election. The Tories would have to be divided as the Liberals were in the 1918 Coupon Election when half received Prime Minister Lloyd George's coupon and half fought against his coalition government. Yet some Tory MPs say one is necessary.

The opinion poll I read today showed for the first time Labour in the lead by 5%, an understandable poll result after last week. 

There were only really ever four final outcomes: leaving with no deal; no Brexit; something rather like Mrs May's non-binding Political Agreement involving no free movement of people, not being part of the customs union or single market, with the inevitable Backstop to prevent a border in Ireland; and something like the Norway option.

The options today are as follows.

1. Leaving with no deal. Today half the Tory MPs, 170, say in a letter to Mrs. May that they want to leave with no deal by May 22. I am in favour of this but I am fairly sure it will only happen if the EU gets fed up with us and I imagine they won't because they do not want no deal, partly for Ireland's sake;
2. The Withdrawal Agreement, which could still pass the House on its fourth chance, if the Speaker gives it one;
3. The Withdrawal Agreement and then the Norway option, which I would like, if the House and EU agree;
4. Ken Clarke's plan for permanent membership of the customs union, if the House and the Government agree, which would be BRINO, Brexit in Name Only, otherwise known as Norway Plus or Common Market 2.0;
5. Another referendum, which could go either way;
6. A long delay, if the EU agrees, which they probably will but might not. This would probably lead to another referendum.

The Tories would own leaving with no deal or Mrs May's plan. All three would be very unpopular with many.

Labour and the Tory Remainers would own permanent membership of the customs union or a second referendum. They would have defied the people's will. They will not be easily forgiven for that.

Much will hinge on the political advantage politicians will get from the outcome but this is always mixed with genuine principle and the principles involved are deep and emotional. Internationalism and globalism are as emotional as patriotism and nationalism.


Meanwhile the divisions are deep. 20% of Leavers would not want a Remainer as a friend and 35% of Remainers reciprocate. 

Only the divisions over Home Rule in 1886, the Munich crisis in 1938 and Suez in 1956 were equally divisive and the fortunes of war healed the latter two splits quickly. The split over Home Rule kept the Liberals in opposition for 17 of the next twenty years, until the Tories split over Free Trade.

Is Brexit impossible?

Since December [2017], I must have written it ten times over: the EU will force us to choose between Northern Ireland, a Brexit in name only (with free movement) and no deal.

From an article from October 18 2018 headlined This Government has made a fool of our great country  by Juliet Samuel, who voted Remain and remains a Remainer but one who, so she rightly says, lost gracefully.

Of the three possibilities she enumerates, no deal is the best or least bad but needed very carefully preparation by the Tory government over years. The backstop in perpetuity has its advantages, as Juliet Samuel said elsewhere, but means Brexit is Brexit in name only. 

To be honest, staying starts to have certain attractions, so long as it means staying in to prepare for a second escape bid. And to make things as difficult as possible for the people in power in the EU and help Europe do something to staunch the flood of migrants into Europe.

As I keep saying, no deal or the Norway deal are fine at this stage - even Norway Plus provided we can change it into Norway or into no deal in the future without the EU's permission and without the pain of the Article 50 process.

Meanwhile it seems the EU thinking we may leave without a deal and - hey presto! - the Irish border problem has magically disappeared.

Juliet Samuel writing today says she knew as soon as she knew the result of the 2017 general election that the Brexit negotiations were doomed. Brexiteers, however, did not realise this.

Narcissism

Humility is an unfashionable virtue these days. Narcissism, along with the Peter Pan or Puer Aeternus syndrome, in other words the inability of boys to become men, are the big psychological problems of our era. 

The narcissism of Barack Obama and Donald Trump is obvious. That of the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, outstandingly so. He is Mr Toad. But the narcissist who most shocks me is King William of the Netherlands who recently took the throne and announced that he did not want to be William V as 

'I am not a number.'

Is Brexit delayed Brexit denied?

Brexit Day is now two weeks away and will presumably be delayed for more than a year, by which time the referendum will have receded a long way into the past and will have lost its authority.

MPs defeated Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement for the third time this afternoon, as had seemed almost inevitable, despite leading Brexiteers Messrs Johnson, Rabb and Rees-Mogg changing their minds and reluctantly voting for it. 

The withdrawal agreement was defeated by a majority of 58 this time, a substantial majority, but much less than the defeat in January by a majority of 230 and earlier this month by a majority of 149.

The DUP voted against. They let the country down by making an agreement to govern Northern Ireland with IRA-Sinn Fein, but they are firm in defence of the Union (the UK not the European Union in case you wondered), despite many Northern Irish farmers liking the agreement.

My head thinks that perhaps this agreement was the best Brexit possible, but my heart is delighted by the defeat. If Brexit does not happen this time it will dominate and embitter British politics for the next ten or twenty years. Perhaps much longer. What the eventual outcome would be I do not know, nor what the outcome would be should the Withdrawal Agreement pass (yes pass in the present subjunctive tense, because Theresa May wants to bring it back a fourth time if she can).

The Prime Minister said a longer delay to Brexit was 'almost certain' and that 'we are reaching the limits of this process in this House' which sounds like another election to me - and maybe Jeremy Corbyn becoming Prime Minister. 

Both parties are badly split over Brexit so it is not clear what the result of an election would be. It might mean  a seat for Nigel Farage and one for 'Tommy Robinson'.

Why a real-life ‘Citizen of the world’ voted Leave

Jessica Isabel Robeson‏ @robeson_jessica 6h6 hours ago

1.A very international Brexit. Why a real-life ‘Citizen of the world’ voted Leave. A thread to mark the endless attempts to stall and betray Brexit. #Brexit #BrexitDay #BrexitDeal #BrexitShambles #BrexitEndgame #Remain #LeaveMeansLeave #LeaveMeansLeavemarch #Leave

1:39 PM - 29 Mar 2019

'One of the things that the EU did like about Theresa May was her respect for the process, the sequences, the parameters'

The BBC's Adam Fleming said yesterday on Radio Four, damningly:

“One of the things that the EU did like about Theresa May was her respect for the process, for the structures that were built around the process, the sequences, the parameters and just how it worked.

He went on:

“And so there’s an infamous anecdote of a conversation between Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker in Sharm-El-Sheik when the deal was not done in the desert, where Theresa May said ‘Jean-Claude, how can you reassure me that when you retire by the end of this year you are not replaced by a baddy like Matteo Salvini of Italy?’ - somebody who just wants to rip everything up and doesn’t respect the rules. 

“And Juncker infamously said to her ‘Well, how can you guarantee me that you won’t be replaced by somebody like Boris Johnson or Jacob-Rees Mogg?’

The EU's fear of and loathing for Boris Johnson was always one of his strong points, to put in balance with his weak ones. If only the EU had feared Mrs. May. 

How saddening but unsurprising that Mrs May considers Mr Salvini, who is a friend to Brexit and Britain a baddy, rather than Mr. Juncker who wishes Brexit and Britain ill. People who say that Britain should remain in the EU to remake it with the help of the so-called populist governments do not understand how deeply ingrained liberalism is in British political culture. All politicians these days are liberals except for the Corbynites, Sir Christopher Chope and the D.U.P.

'Mrs May will go down in history as one of the worst Prime Ministers of all time, devoid of any leadership qualities'

Leo McKinstry in The Telegraph lets Theresa May have it with no holds barred and is right to do so. I agree with all of this.

Mrs May will go down in history as one of the worst Prime Ministers of all time, devoid of any leadership qualities.

...Indeed, it is amazing that Mrs May ever rose so far. Her record at the Home Office was a hopeless one. After six years there, she passed on a legacy of rising crime, a disillusioned police and immigration out of control. As Prime Minister, she swallowed the fashionable, politically correct agenda, reflected in her support for the divisive transgender ideology in defiance of biological science and women’s right.

Just as idiotic has been her insistence on endless race and gender audits across employments, the sort of Orwellian social engineering that should have no place in Tory policy. As she surrendered to the progressive orthodoxy, she went even softer on crime, borders, welfare reform, and fiscal discipline.


....Her supporters blather about her “resilience”, but in reality this is just a form of inflexibility and lack of imagination. Even after it the unpopularity of

'The course of Brexit was set in the hours and days after the 2016 referendum'

Tom McTague, Politico's chief U.K. correspondent, achieves here in a very well-researched essay that very rare thing, journalism which is the second not the first draft of history. Future historians will find it very useful, providing they find it at all, bobbing along on the oceans of copy produced about Brexit. 

He argues that the very grave problem the UK is in with Brexit is the inevitable result of bad decisions taken before and in the immediate aftermath of the referendum and over the following few months.

They were: David Cameron’s refusal to let civil servants prepare a plan for Brexit; his decision to resign; Theresa May's promise on July 27 2016, at the request of Enda Kenny,  not to allow customs to be collected at the border in Ireland; her agreeing to use the Article 50 process and accept 'sequencing' (in other words, allow the discussions on the divorce payment to precede trade talks); her drawing incompatible red lines; and finally her triggering Article 50 for no good reason and without any plan. 

He says:

'Had London been prepared for Brexit on June 24, 2016, the negotiations might have played out differently.

'“The British government should have offered something very, very quickly,” said one high-ranking official of a large EU country. “If the U.K. had said: ‘Here’s the plan,’ we might have accepted it.”

This is the BBC news

I am trying to give up the newspapers and so am listening to the BBC World Service. A news item today is:

Facebook has said it will block "praise, support and representation of white nationalism and separatism" on Facebook and Instagram from next week.

The World Service anchor asked a BBC journalist if this change would be popular and was told it would be popular with most people and was welcomed by 'civil rights groups'. I listened wondering what civil rights groups think civil rights mean. 

Facebook is a company and can censor what people publish as much as it likes, but freedom of expression is a civil right and the one on which all the others rest. However freedom, in the sense of freedom from being told what to do or say, is out of fashion. 

As Western societies become more ethnically diverse freedom of speech in particular will be curtailed more and more to prevent people criticising increasing diversity. The reason that will be given is that such criticism encourages people to kill. Freedom in general will be curtailed more and more to curtail hatred and discrimination. The age of liberalism will become very authoritarian and very illiberal, before it comes to an end. 

The BBC's next story is about scientists talking about the grave damage done to the ecosystem of islands by 'invasive species like cats, rats and goats' and calling for a widespread cull to save the endangered species they prey upon.


And Brexit. The Prime Minister will resign if the House votes for her motion but the Speaker will not allow it to be moved again and in any case the Government will not introduce it because it is sure at the moment to fail. The Government has promised not to leave the EU without a deal unless the House approves and only 160 MPs voted for it last night. So a long delayed Brexit looks the most likely outcome to me, which means the referendum result losing its power. A better alternative would be the Norway option, for the time being at least, meaning accepting free movement and a hard border in Northern Ireland, but without signing up as Norway does to EU schemes that cost money.

Theresa May says she will resign if her Brexit proposal is accepted by the House

It sounded by Saturday that Theresa May had no chance of remaining Prime Minister beyond Monday (11 Cabinet ministers told the Sunday Times that she had to go) but then she seemed to recover. 

I assume that the attempt to overthrow her was a Remainer plot to replace her with her 'de facto deputy' David Lidington, another Leaver, and that it shuddered to a halt when Remainers realised that there was no figure who could bind the Tory party together and that a Leaver was likely to take over. Now, a few minutes ago, Theresa May announced she will resign if her deal passes Parliament.

What do I want to happen? The status of Norway would suit me - leaving with no deal, which I should prefer, will not happen. Do I want Theresa May's deal? No, but I do want Great Britain to leave the EU very much.

A single Somali immigrant costs the Finnish state almost 1 million euros

Every single Somali immigrant will cost the Finnish state almost one million euros during his lifetime, according to this survey.

'American Political Thought’ course removes all white men from curriculum

'I can clearly recall the first day of class a few semesters ago when I eagerly began a course called “American Political Thought” at the University of Colorado, Denver. 

'My excitement quickly soured, however, after Professor Chad Shomura explained to the students in the room that most traditional “American Political Thought” courses are too focused on the achievements of white men.
As a consequence, he told us he had removed every single white male and their theoretical perspectives from the entire course curriculum.

Marriage in the Parisian suburbs

In her book Questioning French Secularism: Gender Politics and Islam in a Parisian Suburb (Contemporary Anthropology of Religion series) 2012, Dr. Jennifer A. Selby found that second and third generation immigrant men, whose families came to France from the Mahgreb, like to marry old-fashioned Muslim girls and to reject the secular values of the French Republic and secularism. Dr Selby is an authority on secularism, women in Islam and gender studies. 

"What is more striking is that their sons, born and educated in France, seek similar arrangements with North African women even if they often do not share a common language or upbringing."

Kissing the Pope's ring

Yesterday the Pope pulled his hand away to prevent a series of people he was meeting from kissing is ring (his for the first time is silver gilt, not gold). This apparently happened after he allowed several people to make a gesture of kissing it while others had shaken his hand.

According to Christopher Lamb, the Vatican journalist who usually follows the papal line rather uncritically, when he met the conservative American Cardinal Burke in Rome the cardinal's press adviser greeted the cardinal by kneeling and kissing the gold ring on the ring finger of his hand. This is the traditional sign of respect given to a prince of the church but I confess that I did not know this till today.

Why Britain needs a fairly hard border with the Irish Republic

The European Economic Area (EEA) includes the 28 EU countries and three, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, which are part of the Single Market but not the EU or its Customs Union.

They are members of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), along with Switzerland, which is not part of the EEA, but belongs to the single market as a result of a complicated series of trade deals. They are not members of the EU Customs Union, which means they can sign their own trade deals with other countries, though in practice they are pretty closely aligned to the EU to make trade easy.

Nevertheless, imports of agricultural produce into Switzerland, for example, attract a whopping 30% tariff. There have to be some customs checks on goods travelling between EFTA countries and EU countries and it takes about 20 minutes on average for a lorry to pass from Norway to Sweden. 

'Believe me, the Civil Service is trying to sink Brexit. I have seen it from the inside'

A civil servant has anonymously told Rachel Sylvester of the Times (an unreconstructed Remainer) that

“The civil service is totally against no-deal. Mark Sedwill has warned it could lead to a border poll in Northern Ireland and increase the chances of the Union breaking up. He has also told the cabinet he has security concerns, but they have been ploughing ahead with the preparations for party political reasons.”

Another anonymous civil servant (I suspect that, in fact, he is a diplomat) has told the Telegraph that the senior civil service is trying to prevent Brexit, should you not have already guessed.

I have met thousands of civil servants in the past few years: I can only recall five who voted for Brexit.

Cambridge and the Decline of the West

The Cambridge Students' Union has persuaded the University to rescind its invitation to Jordan Peterson to be a temporary professor in the Divinity Faculty. Students were angry partly because he described the concept of 'white privilege' as a 'Marxist lie'. 

I am very saddened, but note that Professor Peterson is not a Christian and probably does not believe in God and therefore was a slightly odd choice in the first place. This however was not the students' union's objection.

The University refused to say why the decision to rescind the invitation had been taken until yesterday, when the Vice-Chancellor said:

“The faculty became aware of a photograph of Professor Peterson posing with his arm around a man wearing a T-shirt that clearly bore the slogan ‘I’m a proud Islamophobe.’

'Theresa May only does what she is told — without question'

Last night MPs voted 329 to 302 for a backbench motion for a series of "indicative votes" on alternative Brexit paths. 

The choice is no longer between leaving with no deal, not leaving at all or Mrs May's proposal. No deal will not happen unless the House agrees to it, the Prime Minister has promised, and so will never happen. I regret this. 


All sorts of things are possible: the Norway option; Norway Plus; a second referendum; a long delay which would mean a second referendum; or even her wretched deal finally passing.

Katie Perrior works in public relations. She worked at one time for Boris Johnson, was appointed Director of Communications at 10 Downing St by Theresa May and resigned when the snap general election was announced. She called yesterday in The Times for the Prime Minister to resign in return for her deal being passed by the House of Commons and said that 

I was was wrong when I said that history would be kind to Theresa May. Instead, future scholars may well identify the prime minister as a passenger at the time when the country needed a rally driver.

What is clear from the past few years is that the prime minister only does what she is told — without question — and is simply only as good as those around her. 

It has to be Michael Gove now

It has to be Michael Gove now. He is the necessary man to be British Prime Minister.

He is stunningly eloquent, as he showed in the House recently defending the government of which he is a member. He is a committed Leaver, which is absolutely necessary if he is to be credible painting the reasons why we are leaving the EU. I was angry with him for not resigning over Theresa May's proposals announced to a disappointed cabinet at Chequers but his loyalty means he can bind the party together.

Eleven cabinet ministers have told the Sunday Times that the present incumbent must go but today Remainers are rallying to her, scared I imagine that their man David Lidington will not succeed her and Mr Gove might. David Lidlington, no doubt an estimable man, would be no good. We know that because Amber Rudd and the other hardcore anti-Brexiteers want him to be Prime Minister. No-one knows who he is, though he was captain of his college University Challenge team, is churchy and disapproves of homosexual marriage. 

But Tim Shipman's long article makes it very clear that every man's hand is against Mrs May at least in private. Of many vignettes, this is the one that I cannot forget.  Almost three weeks ago all the whips went to see her

... to listen to a pitch on her plans for domestic agenda. Paul Maynard, one of the senior whips who voted leave, said: “I’ve heard enough. When I was told that we would have to come over and talk to you I began to cry. I said, ‘I don’t want to go over and talk to that woman any more. She’s betrayed Brexit, destroying our party. I want her gone.’”