What next? Nigel Farage's boast

I chose a very bad time to stop reading the newspapers. It freed up huge amounts of time but I cannot miss these moments in our island story.

I imagine the government will find some way round the Speaker's ruling this afternoon forbidding them to introduce substantially the same motion a third time after it was heavily defeated, citing a decision by Speaker Phelips in 1604 and various occasions when the precedent was followed, the most recent being in 1943. 

Did Mrs May really think no deal was better than a bad deal, she would have prorogued Parliament weeks ago and left with no deal. Now she may prorogue Parliament and recall it within days in order to get round the ruling (this was done in 1948 to get round the provisions of the 1911 Parliament Act and pass the 1949 Parliament Act). 

But the Father of the European Parliament, one Elmar Brok, who sits on the toy Parliament’s Brexit steering group, said that Nigel Farage is saying that he has “already agreed with Salvini… that he will refuse any extension” to Britain’s Article 50 negotiations with Brussels, to ensure the United Kingdom leaves the EU on March 29th as currently scheduled, with no deal.

I somehow do not believe Mr. Salvini said this, but who knows these days?

Does it have my vote to be true if it may? Oh yes.

Oscar Wilde was a pederast

For decades, Woody Allen was immune to almost any and all accusations against him because of Annie Hall. He was even forgiven for every film since. But at present his own genius opt-out appears to be up for reconsideration because of fresh claims about long-ago aspects of his private life. It is a familiar problem. At various times in recent decades, Oscar Wilde’s reputation has again teetered on a ledge for similar reasons. Today, when anybody mentions the rent boys and their age, defenders of Wilde understandably stress their counter-arguments. In truth, it has simply become recognised that we cannot do without the greatest comedies in the English language. So small evasions are permitted.

Rod Liddle: Brexit, BBC bias and the liberal elite

"What you've actually got is virtually Dubai, where there's an affluent white elite preying on the appalling wages of incoming service people from abroad. I think it's a disgusting way to live."

Rod Liddle in this interview talks about how London has changed in his lifetime.

I was interested to find that the figures we were first told were wrong and that in fact over 40% of voters in London voted to leave the EU. But in the centre of London in good jobs there are a lot of graduates who voted Remain and hate Brexit.

Shutting down debate over Muslims

As I mentioned yesterday, the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, where the massacre on Friday took place, had a small congregation yet produced two terrorists that are known about: Daryl Jones and Christopher Havard, both of whom were involved with Al Qaeda and killed in drone strikes.

Their parents blamed the Christchurch mosque for introducing the pair to radical Islam, according to a news story from 2014 in the New Zealand online magazine Stuff. 

Stuff quoted someone who attended the mosque saying,

“A visiting speaker from Indonesia talked about violent jihad and plenty shared his views.”

It sounds as though the mosque was not always the innocent place of worship that it appeared.

Of course, none of this mitigates the crime of murder in any way or even explains it. I have no idea whether the man arrested knew of any of this backstory. 

But the important point is this. This story would flog a lot of newspapers but instead was deliberately taken off the internet, by the news magazine, after the massacre. 

Why?

That the press has not just kept quiet about this story but rather actively suppressed it is terribly wrong and worrying. Once more, in Douglas Murray's words, the press seem to be negotiating between their readers and the truth.

Bertrand Russell quotations

Eliminate distractions.



It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions make it impossible to earn a living. 

Today is St Gertrude's Day - she is the patron saint of cats

Saint Gertrude praying as mice (or holy souls) scamper up her crozier. Image via Wikimedia.

She has a crozier because she was an abbess. More about this charming saint here.

Nuclear energy is not dangerous after all

It seems nuclear energy is not dangerous after all, unless you use it to drop a bomb. So says Michael Shellenberger, President of Environmental Progress, a think tank, writing in Forbes magazine. 

Radiation from Chernobyl will kill at most 200 people, while the radiation from Fukushima and Three Mile Island will kill nobody.

It seems the stuff we have been reading for years is untrue. 

Why are experts not more sceptical? 

"Les savants ne sont pas curieux",

as Freud said, quoting Anatole France. Absolutely right. 

This is true of all experts, especially biblical scholars, climatologists and, I regret to say, historians.

It reminds me of a popular American car bumper sticker from 1980:

"More people died at Chappaquiddick than died at Three Mile Island."

Left-wing American politicians are even less sceptical about things that fit their world view. A surge of emotion that overcomes them, when they think they are trying to protect innocent people against powerful bad ones, stops them from thinking clearly. They are always lionesses protecting their young.

Why was it so important that the video of the Christchurch killings be suppressed?

I don't know if this is a stupid question but why was it very important to remove the 1.5 million copies of the video made by the alleged Christchurch mass murderer from Facebook and Twitter?

I am much more worried about restrictions on freedom of speech than I am about a video which is of clear public interest being watched.

“She is mean. She is rude. She is cruel. She is stupid. I have heard that from almost everyone who has dealt with her”

A very interesting and enjoyable article in the German press about how absolute awful Theresa May is.

It quotes Matthew Parris, whose views on Brexit and the UKIP electorate I disagree with but whom in general I greatly respect.

"She is mean. She is rude. She is cruel. She is stupid. I have heard that from almost everyone who has dealt with her," Parris says. He said he had never expected this much hatred, "and that is not a word I use lightly."

John O'Sullivan ‏

John O'Sullivan‏ @JohnOSullivanNR 15h15 hours ago

John O'Sullivan Retweeted James Moyies

If May's deal goes through, the Tories will own the catastrophe that follows--something called Brexit that isn't Brexit, that subjects Britain to EU rules indefinitely and leads to endless controversy. See today's Survation poll for the first fruits.

John O'Sullivan‏ @JohnOSullivanNR 14h14 hours ago

John O'Sullivan Retweeted Daniel Kawczynski

Removing no deal from the table gives Remainers what they want only if MPs adopt another Brexit deal. If not, no deal remains on the table--indeed, it IS the table. But if May's non-Brexit deal passes, she'll claim Brexit achieved. Blame for its failures then rests on "Brexit."

He may well be right that Theresa May's deal would be much worse for the Conservative Party than not leaving. I have enormously admired him (and his colleague the late, great Frank Johnson) since my schooldays and he is one of the few people whose wisdom I tend to trust.

Christchurch suspect is an eco-fascist who admires the People’s Republic of China.

The man arrested for massacring 49 worshippers in a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand posted a manifesto online just before the attack. I haven't read it and do not intend to but he said in it:

“For once, the person that will be called a fascist, is an actual fascist, I am sure the journalists will love that. I mostly agree with Sir Oswald Mosley’s views and consider myself an eco-fascist. The nation with the closest political and social values to my own is the People’s Republic of China.”

I hope we shall be spared a lot of tedious boilerplate commentary about this massacre, about islamophobia, racism, Donald Trump and anti-immigration politics being to blame and so on and I should also like to be spared whataboutery. 

Rod Liddle, who must have even odder Facebook friends than me, complains that at a moment for mourning some people are complaining that the flag is flying at half mast over Buckingham Palace, that the attacks were called terrorism and the murderer called right wing. 

I see people are pointing out that recently 130 Christians were killed by Muslims in Nigeria and the other day 23 were killed by Muslims in the Philippines. This is important, of course, and in general the war against Christians is woefully and shamefully unremarked even by, or especially by, the churches. But it seems distasteful to turn murder into politics. Let the dead be buried. 

Yet the murders are an entirely political act. 

This massacre is part of a sequence and the rate of massacres will surely speed up. Nor is this very surprising. What action can we or should we take in response?

Beyond tightening gun laws, I mean, and restricting free speech further on the internet. The suspect had a gun licence.

I wish to avoid scoring political points and yet some points are very important, especially about the way the media distort the truth and the way politicians think it scandalous that a video made by the suspect has been spread across the world via Facebook. 

More importantly, a friend on Facebook just posted this which is very interesting if true and it seems to be true from what I can find on the net. Googling, I see that it was first posted by the controversialist Milo Yiannopoulos.

The Al Noor mosque in Christchurch targeted by Brenton Tarrant produced at least two terrorists, from a very small congregation: al-Qaida recruit Daryl Jones, killed by a drone, and Christopher Havard. The parents of these boys say their sons were radicalized by extremist preachers at Al Noor. The boys were in Yemen with the guys who trained the Charlie Hebdo killers. A 2014 story at Stuff.co.nz (now scrubbed from the internet) quotes a mosque attendee who says, “A visiting speaker from Indonesia talked about violent jihad and plenty shared his views.” Three questions: How many news reports have you read these details in? If you’d known that this mosque was a terrorist factory, would it have changed your feelings about the news at all? Finally, how does it make you feel to learn that the media has been not just ignoring these facts but deleting stories to hide them over the past 24 hours?

Brexit: it looks as though Theresa May, Olly Robbins and the civil servants will win

On Thursday Theresa May's deal comes back to the Commons for a third time if the Speaker allows the Government to have a third attempt. It is against the rules of procedure and the Speaker is a narcissistic man who likes making big waves and who is publicly opposed to Brexit, but he probably will not stop it.

The man who should have discarded his peerage and been made Prime Minister when David Cameron resigned is his predecessor, Michael Howard, (the sons of immigrants from Romania, by the way) who horrified his successor by supporting Brexit.

Today he says that he would have voted against Theresa May's deal on the two occasions

I posted this argument in favour of referendums back in July 2011

I am not a theoretical democrat. I do not blame Lord Grey for not giving the working class the vote. That would be like blaming Henry III for not introducing the NHS. But I have come round to being a strong believer in referendums (never forsooth referenda please). I made this philosophical journey independently, by the way, of Daniel Hannan who takes the same view. But my views are bolstered by this, which I came across thanks to libertarian writer and novelist Dr. Sean Gabb.

“…progressives should be very wary about referendums. They are rarely instruments for change – and almost never on the actual questions posed. If we had proceeded by referendum, most of the social advances of the past 100 years would have been stopped in their tracks.” (Julian Priestly, “Regressive referendum a rallying point for reactionary xenophobes”, Tribune, 22nd April 2011, p.19.)

Delaying Brexit is not popular among British voters (but what business of theirs is it?)

38% of the British favour delaying Brexit. 43% oppose doing so.

Quotations

Peter Drucker
The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said.

Curiouser and curiouser

The Conservative Government motion requesting the said Government to ask the EU to allow a delayed Brexit passed the House of Commons by a large majority last night, because of Labour support. Most Conservative MPs voted against it in a free vote, along with some Labour MPs who defied their whip.  

Stranger things than that happen when you allow MPs a free vote, but very rarely things as strange as the behaviour of the Rt. Hon. Stephen Barclay, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. He made a speech summing up in favour of the motion, telling MPs 

“It is time for this House to act in the national interest, it’s time to put forward an extension that is realistic” 

and then voted against it.

The Dâmbovița this morning

Things are still going to plan for Theresa May - the plan Olly Robbins explained in the bar in Brussels

Sky news presenter Beth Rigby, following the vote against no deal: ‘I don’t understand: why you don’t just take her deal and bank the win?’

Mark Francois, MP: ‘Because it’s not a win, it’s a lose. I’m not going to bank a lose. I was in the army, I wasn’t trained to lose’

A former Conservative Chief Whip said today that once whipping discipline is lost it cannot be regained. Despite this, the Government kept control of what is on the House of Commons Order Paper by a majority of two votes tonight , subject always to what the Speaker decides. 

MPs also voted 412 to 202 in favour of asking the EU for a delay to Brexit until June.

It may seem as if Mrs. May has lost badly, but things are no worse than she could reasonably have expected. In fact, things are still going to plan for her - the plan mentioned by Olly Robbins in the Brussels bar.

“Extension is possible, but if they [MPs] don’t vote for the deal then the extension is a long one.”

The choice will be either a short delay if Mrs May's deal passes, which gives the EU all they want, or a long delay on which the EU will insist, presumably in cahoots with Downing St. and Mr Robbins. 

European Council President Donald Tusk said tonight that he would press for a long extension to Article 50, to give the UK time to ‘rethink its Brexit strategy’. A long extension would mean Britain taking part in the elections to the EU Parliament and almost certainly mean a second referendum.

Mrs May's  plan is better for the EU than a hostile UK forced to remain in the EU against her will. The EU hope that after a punishment beating during the trade negotiations that will follow her Brexit the UK will decide to come back, without the rebate Mrs Thatcher won and accepting the euro.

Bronwen Maddox, former Foreign Editor of The Times, said on Sky News today that if the Brexiteers accept Mrs May's proposals they will then take over and lead the Conservative party. 

She thinks they should swallow their principles and accept the fait accompli. I expect that most will. 

Will they all? If not, Labour support is crucial.

The other options are what Labour says it wants - staying in the customs union, which is Norway Plus - or the Norway option, outside the customs union but probably closely aligned to it and with free movement of Europeans.

Mrs May was right when she said no deal was better than a bad deal, but she was being deceitful when she said it, because she clearly believed the opposite. 

She could have ensured leaving with no deal rather than a bad deal simply by proroguing Parliament for two and a half weeks. 

Nothing could have been further from her mind, of course.

On the other hand, I could be wrong. Robert Peston thinks she has little chance of getting her Brexit passed without Labour and why should Labour betray the majority of its supporters and members who want a second referendum, just because they fought the last election pledged to respect the referendum result?

My sixth-form Virgil comes to mind.

"Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt."

"The world is a world of tears, and the burdens of mortality touch the heart."

Another historic night at Westminster

Last  night was another night as historic as the debates on the Reform Act in 1832 or on the European Communities Act 1972, which took Britain into what the British then called the Common Market.

For readers who are not following British news closely, or are doing so but are still confused, here is an explanation of what is happening with Brexit.

Last night in dramatic scenes, but not so very unexpectedly, the House of Commons defied the Government and voted by 312 to 308 to reject a no-deal Brexit under any circumstances. Four cabinet ministers and twelve other ministers defied the whip and abstained. 

They should resign, of course, but will not and they will not be fired. One minister alone honourably did resign, forwent her car and salary and voted against it.

This vote has no legal force. Under British law, a law passed because the Supreme Court upheld Gina Miller's challenge to the Government over using Article 50, and under EU law  the UK must leave the EU on 29 March.

But leaving with no deal is not going to happen. It never was.

The government will try a third time to pass its deal, although according to Erskine May, the House of Commons rulebook, it has no right to bring back a motion that has been defeated by the House and this has been heavily defeated twice.

In any case, a short delay is necessary, but the EU may impose what conditions it likes before granting a delay or may refuse one altogether.  The House will vote today on whether to ask for a delay till June.

Some ministers, according to the Daily Telegraph, are discussing a two year delay. If this happens a second referendum is inevitable.

What no deal would look like

At 7 a.m. the British government published its plans for what to do if we leave the EU with no deal. They make no deal sound attractive to me. They should have been published two and a half years ago.


Britain would unilaterally waive checks on all goods crossing the Northern Ireland border and for up to a year remove all tariffs on 87 percent of imported goods, though not agricultural imports or cars. We would become a 'third party' if we left with no deal but if EU levies tariffs on the UK it would be held responsible for a hard border in Ireland. Britian would not put customs officers on the border as we would not levy tariffs.

I and others expected this and expect a barrage of propaganda aimed at painting this as a threat not an invitation.


I think the chances of leaving with no deal are tiny but I hope that discussions of the practicalities might lead to a surge in support among MPs for the idea. The public already favours it by a large margin according to a poll on Sunday, though polls speak with forked tongues.