Brexit thoughts Tuesday morning - today is really the crunch day - we think

Allison Pearson@allisonpearson

So the LibDems will support a second referendum. But, as @joswinson said on live TV, she would not accept the result of a 2nd referendum if it was Leave again.
Roll up, ladies and gentlemen, to have your vote disregarded a second time!
Who could resist?

5,315

6:28 PM - Oct 21, 2019

For the DUP, the separate treatment of Northern Ireland is unacceptable. Yet when Theresa May went to the extreme length of keeping the whole of the UK in a closer arrangement with the EU to save them from this outcome, they were emphatically against that as well. They are also against leaving without a deal. Did it not occur to them when they campaigned for Brexit that it would be very likely to entail one of the three outcomes they are now against?

William Hague, yesterday in the Telegraph

Novelist Eilis O'Hanlon writing in the (Unionist) Belfast Telegraph

"So-called “Super Saturday” was a damp squib in the end, though at least Remainer MPs finally stopped pretending their only aim was to avoid no deal. They’re out to keep Britain in the EU, whether voters like it or not."

"In truth, it makes no more sense to say Boris betrayed the DUP than it does to say that

Boris is Churchillian - and a Cavalier - but not a racist

Thank God Jeremy Hunt is not Prime Minister. Or Matt Hancock, Sajid Javid, Andrea Leadsome, Rory Stewart or any of the others, most of all George Osborne. 

Tim Stanley was right when he gushed that Boris was wonderful on Saturday and might be right when he compared him to Churchill. All depends though on how things turn out.

Had Churchill died in 1939 he would be remembered as a fascinating failure who was responsible for the débâcle of the Dardanelles campaign (which is not true) and for encouraging Jinnah to argue for carving Pakistan out of India, as a way of defeating the movement for Indian independence.

Had Hitler not attacked any more countries after he annexed Czechia, Churchill would have been remembered as a warmonger. 

But if Boris resembles Churchill, he does so more in his Liberal than his Tory phase. 

But then Churchill was always an Edwardian Liberal Imperialist really, if he was ever anything.

Boris is so liberal he is almost an interesting, intelligent, eloquent and likeable version of Hillary, if such a thing is imaginable. 

But it isn't.

Boris, like Churchill, likes wars – he wanted to intervene in Syria to achieve regime change - public spending and social reform.

And Boris is a Tory in the sense that Churchill was: in the sense of having a cavalier sensibility.

Bagehot describes this perfectly.

...The essence of Toryism is enjoyment. Talk of the ways of spreading a wholesome conservatism throughout this country! Give painful lectures, distribute weary tracts (and perhaps this is as well,—you may be able to give an argumentative answer to a few objections, you may diffuse a distinct notion of the dignified dullness of politics); but as far as communicating and establishing your creed are concerned, try a little pleasure. The way to keep up old customs is to enjoy old customs; the way to be satisfied with the present state of things is to enjoy that state of things. Over the “Cavalier” mind this world passes with a thrill of delight; there is an exaltation in a daily event, zest in the “regular thing,” joy at an old feast.

Communism

Leninism was always terrorism and very comparable with other forms of nihilism, such as Islamist terrorism.

Sunset over the Telephone Palace

A war between cities and provinces is breaking out

I gave up reading Roger Boyes many years ago. His banal analyses of Middle Eastern politics sounded like they were dictated by MI6 or the State Department. However I chanced across an article of his about the Polish government, about which I want to know much more. It is presiding over an unemployment rate of 3%, child benefit of £100 a month, a minimum wage of £800 a month and 5% economic growth last year. It is also Catholic, gives mothers incentives to have children and steers Poland away from the wilder shores of LGBT theory. It tried to restrict abortion.

Anne Applebaum hates the Polish government, which in itself inclines me like it. It is poles (no pun intended) apart from her globalist, liberal, pro-immigration world-view, which she shares with the FT and the Economist. So am I. 

Daniel Hannan: 'This is it: victory. Like Cincinnatus returning to his plough, we can leave the field with honour'

Ignore the misleading headline. This article is Daniel Hannan giving Boris's withdrawal agreement his warm support. 

This is important because he was one of the two or three best known Brexiteers before the referendum campaign started (the late Christopher Booker was another). He argued for a Swiss or Norwegian deal, not  hard Brexit all all. 

Nevertheless, he said that even staying in was better than Theresa May's WA and he was probably right. Her deal meant staying in a customs union with the EU, Boris's should mean a free trade agreement but the ability to make FTAs with other countries. Let's see see what deal Mr Trump can offer.

Brexit: where we are as Great Britain wakes up this morning

Blast that silly, giggling, woolly-minded intelligent fool, Sir Oliver Letwin, for stopping Boris's momentum and forcing him to break his pledge not to ask for a further delay to Brexit. 

Blast Boris for not preventing the Benn Act becoming law by advising Her Majesty to delay Royal Assent or by arranging a filibuster in the House of Lords. 

But it still looks like he has (just) a majority to pass his withdrawal agreement through Parliament in all its stages. Parliament may have to sit on Saturday again.


But it is nip and tuck.

A government source told the Telegraph:

“It’s on a knife-edge. Everything plays into this week. It is not just about Europe, it’s whether an election will happen this year. The idea is get the Bill through, and push for an election immediately.”
“Unless they get everything sorted this week, it probably won’t happen until the New Year.”

Boris hopes to win parliamentary backing for his deal today, though the Speaker may well prevent him putting back the same motion that the House discussed on Saturday. Tomorrow the Second Reading of the Bill will be debated and no amendments can be taken.

DUP could unite with Labour to try to force through an an amendment to the Bill which would compel the Government to pursue a customs union with Brussels. This would prevent barriers between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. But Boris is thought to be very close to securing a majority with the support of around eight Labour MPs, a handful of independents and almost all the former Tories from whom he withdrew the whip.

The Dâmbovița in the late afternoon sun today

The monstrous regiment of women in the Church of England

It only seems recently that the Church of England appointed its first bishopess and now they arrive not in single spies but in battalions. 

The Archbishop of Canterbury has been appointing as many women to suffragan posts as possible - four in one all women bunch this summer. The Church of England, instead of being didactic, will become therapeutic.

I am not an Anglican but what the Church of England does influences the whole of English society and, if there still is one, culture.

This article in the Spectator about the woman whom John Bercow insisted on making the first female chaplain of the House of Commons (the Rector of St Margaret's had before then always fulfilled this function), who has just been made Bishopess of Dover, makes dispiriting reading. 

'Hudson-Wilkin told an audience in Liverpool that she now refuses to take the children from her parish into St Paul’s Cathedral for confirmation because while ‘the congregation is diverse’, the clergy, she says, is something ‘completely different’. She went into her local Specsavers and harangued the management for having no photographs of black people modelling the specs,

Boris will get his deal passed, one way or another

Did Boris really expect his deal to pass the Commons yesterday?


He knew he would not get the ten DUP MPs on board but he was determined to force it through by hope, faith and, in the case of vacillating MPs, charity. It’s a question of what would have once been called manliness but, in an age where women are politicians too, can instead be called forcefulness and determination.

It looks like, had a vote on the motion on his deal taken place, the Government would just have won it after a good whipping operation. (One whip was reported assaying, “It’s a tricky operation because on one hand we are telling Labour MPs is a case of deal or no deal and on the other we’re telling Spartans it’s a case of deal or no Brexit". )

We cannot know because Boris decided not to have a vote after the Letwin amendment passed and the motion ceased to be a binding one, but merely an indicative vote (remember them?)

Boris wins in any case, as the man who did everything he could and was defeated by MPs who did not want to honour the referendum result that they promised to honour when they stood for election last time.

People say the DUP have been hung out to dry by Boris, after they conceded the principle of customs checks in the North Sea. 

Perhaps they were played but, but they have been very stupid. They have foregone a wonderful deal they could have made with the EU and Westminster for slowly being talked into assenting to the deal and, as it sands, the deal they rejected would help the Northern Irish economy much more than leaving with no deal would. 

It would favour Protestant farmers who vote DUP and make also the province a gateway between the UK and the EU.

Yesterday's deal is significantly different from Mrs May's. It gets rid of the backstop rather than renaming it and it enables the UK to make free trade agreements with the USA and other countries. 

A customs border between Northern Ireland and the Republic would be something normal between two sovereign states but the EU have been convinced that it would breach the Belfast Agreement and lead to violence. 

It would never be possible to rid them of this idea. Mrs May had accepted that it would not happen shortly after she became Prime Minister, one of her many unforced mistakes. 

That being so, this is probably the best deal we could get. If we have a free trade agreement with the EU, as Boris hopes, the customs border between Northern Ireland and the British mainland will not happen, though some checks will be necessary.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard dislikes the deal but thinks we should settle for it and points out that if Boris wins the next election after the deal is agreed,

"the negotiating dynamic with Brussels will be different in 2020. The EU will not be able to play off Westminster tribes against each other so easily. The cliff edge for the UK will be less severe since the May/Johnson deal does resolve a string of technical issues such as nuclear ties under Euratom or landing rights for aircraft, etc.
"This makes a WTO walk-out more plausible, and therefore more menacing for the EU as it tries to preserve its £95bn trade surplus with the UK (while offering no reciprocal access for services, of course)."

Olly Robbins was overheard in a bar saying the backstop would be a bridge to a deal - a deal that would pretty much be like remaining in a customs union with the EU. 

Boris's aim is to have a free trade agreement with the EU without the EU's excessive regulation. I hope for Canada dry but doubt the EU will wear it - but we shall have the threat of no deal to help persuade them.

Johnson last night sought to comply with the letter of the Benn Act while subverting it to prevent an extension. His aides spin that this could conclude with some of them in goal. It’s very unlikely indeed.

What happens next?

When the withdrawal bill is presented this week the rebels will seek to amend it to add a confirmatory referendum. If they fail it is still by no means certain that the bill will pass.

Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski has held private talks with senior figures in the Polish and Hungarian governments in the last 48 hours to persuade them to veto any proposed extension. No 10 does not expect them to agree.

Instead, the EU will presumably either delay replying to Boris’s unsigned letter sent at 11 pm last night asking for an extension or agree one for two weeks. In either case this will bring back the threat of no deal that the Benn Act sought to defuse and help the British government take the country out of the EU.

It looks to me that Boris has the political momentum to pass his bill and take us out of the EU this month or next. A lot depends on what the public think, funnily enough.

But a two week extension is of huge importance because it makes an election before Christmas impossible (because of Christmas bazaars in church halls).

If so, Boris may also get his Queen’s Speech passed, then a Budget passed and have the first January election since 1910, which resulted in a hung parliament with the Irish members holding the balance of power. 

That was followed by another election in the same year that produced another hung parliament and three years later the UK was on the brink of civil war, from which only a gunshot in Sarajevo saved us.

Stability and strong Government with me, or chaos with Ed Miliband

David Cameron

✔@David_Cameron

Britain faces a simple and inescapable choice - stability and strong Government with me, or chaos with Ed Miliband: https://www.facebook.com/DavidCameronOfficial/posts/979082725449379 …

Michael Savage@michaelsavage

It’s my view, based on nothing, that everyone should get to retweet the Cameron “chaos with Ed Miliband” tweet once.

I’m still saving mine up, on the basis that this is not peak chaos. Oh no, not even close.

270

12:01 AM - Mar 14, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

In case you have forgotten, 'chaos with Ed Miliband' was the Tory theme in the 2015 election, in another age. 

After Theresa May resigned Ed Miliband changed his Twitter name to "Chaos with Ed Miliband". 

In the 2017 election Theresa May repeated over and over the phrase "Strong and stable" or "strong and stable leadership", a phrase she was told to use repeatedly by Sir Lynton Crosby. She said, in a meeting with her advisers, that the she didn't like the repetition of "strong and stable" which made her look "stupid", but she continued to repeat it anyway. So much for strength.

This is how bad things now are

Pete North

@PeteNorth303

I think the Professor (Peace & Conflict, Durham University) was in a self-satisfied coma when 17.4m people voted to leave the EU.

Quote Tweet

Roger Mac Ginty

@rogermacginty

· 3h

Today a group of mainly white, privileged Englishmen get to vote on whether or not to make the lives of 70 million people more expensive and more complicated. That this is even up for debate says a lot about their privilege. #BrexitDebate

4:00 PM · Oct 19, 2019

Sunset at the Telephone Palace, Bucharest, last night

Boris Johnson tries to win the House and country round to his deal

If Sir Oliver Letwin does not pull his amendment and it passes today, the next step will be Tuesday’s meaningful vote to ensure that the UK can leave on October 31.


Some are saying a two week delay will be necessary but I bet Boris will not allow that to happen, if he has a choice. he said he would take us out by the 31st do or die when that seemed impossible and now it does seem possible.

Boris is in great form today - he is not usually good speaking in the House, though wonderful on the platform. He has spoken in the tone of 'glutinous emollience' which he promised to use two weeks ago.


Barry Sheerman compared him with Margaret Thatcher whom he disliked but whose sincerity he never doubted. He made it clear without using unparliamentary language that he thinks Boris a liar and charlatan. 

He has a good point about Mrs T. I disliked her too but her probity and deep seriousness of purpose look wonderful now compared with people like Donald Trump or all her successors as Tory leader, with the possible exceptions of Michael Howard and William Hague.


Boris, though he lacks so many things she had, is, I think, an equally big political figure and much more eloquent.

Boris's deal might scrape through today, but further delay likely thanks to Letwin

The Daily Mail publishes a poll carried out by Survation, which interviewed more than 1,000 people online that suggests 50% of the public believe MPs should vote for the deal, and 38% say they shouldn't. Another poll yesterday by YouGov showed: 38% favour remaining in the EU, 30% Mr Johnson's deal and 17% back leaving with no deal. 48% of Leavers now say they'd back the Johnson deal, compared to 33% who still favour crashing out with no deal in place.

The papers seem to think today's vote is on a knife-edge but predict a win for the Government by two or three votes.

Very importantly the amendment tabled by MP Sir Oliver Letwin, to withhold parliamentary approval until all the legislation to implement Brexit has been approved, would mean the Prime Minister would have to fail to keep his pledge and leave on the 31st do or die. 

Sir Oliver supports the deal but wants to prevent the Government winning today's vote, satisfying the Benn Act and then taking the country out of the EU by accident or design with no deal. Sir Oliver is a clever man and is responsible for the Poll Tax, which I could have told him would be a complete disaster, and the Fixed Terms Parliament Act.

Assuming the Letwin amendment is passed, and it looks like it will be, Brexit must be delayed. Will this mean an election before Christmas and before Brexit?

I hope it will just mean a delay of a fortnight. 

This article, 'This flawed deal is a tolerable price to pay for our freedom', by the head of Lawyers for Britain, is extremely informative. The deal is dreadful in quite a few ways but none the less it must be supported. The villain of the piece is the wretched Theresa May.

What people are saying about Boris's deal

Charles Moore in the Telegraph today:

The real difference between the May era and the Johnson one concerns what happens next. If Mrs May’s deal had got through in March, it would have failed to clear the poisoned political atmosphere. With Mr Hammond still in place as Chancellor and Britain locked in the Customs Union, our direction of travel in relation to the EU would have been slowly back in. Sensing that the Leave campaign had lost in all but name, and that the Government did not mind this, British officialdom would have signalled to Brussels that it was back in business. The Establishment’s culture war against the 17.4 million Leave voters would have launched a new offensive.



If the Government wins today’s vote – and if MPs avoid nullifying it by voting for a second referendum or another extension – the political atmosphere is transformed. After three years of failure, we shall have success. After three years of deadlock, we shall have breakthrough. In the endless political contest between hope and fear, hope will have triumphed. Yesterday, I heard the BBC’s Adam Fleming referring to “Boris’s infamous phrase: ‘Get Brexit done’.” If those words are infamous to the BBC, you can bet they resonate in the country.


Charles Utley, son of the great T.E. Utley, on Facebook (reproduced by his kind permission):

The first thing to be said about this deal is that it is significantly different from Mrs May's. Many of us, I suspect, feared that Mr Johnson would simply accept almost all of the previous deal and just make two or three tiny changes to it. That is not what has

Oh dear what a shame

It is a sin to take pleasure in others' misfortunes but I merely note that Simon Schama, AC Grayling and Jonathan Friedland are taking this very badly indeed. 

I think poor Schama may have lost his reason.

I back Boris's deal with gratitude - the option of leaving with no deal will still exist

I always thought Boris could pull it off against all the odds, inheriting a terrible bargaining position from his grossly incompetent predecessor, and in the face of the serried ranks of a Remain Parliament and civil service, the Benn Act and Lady Hale. 

I was sitting outside a cafe in Piata Amzei, enjoying the warm sunshine and reading the news, when I read that President Juncker had said that there will be no further postponement of Brexit. 

I laughed out loud so loud and for so long that the girl at the next table looked round. 'It's about Brexit', I said. I can't remember enjoying a piece of news more since I got a telegram aged 17 telling me I had won a scholarship to university.

Alas, Herr Juncker's remark was just flim-flam, it turned out. He has no power over whether a further delay is granted. It requires the unanimous consent of the 27 member states, who will not want to force us out with no deal. Though if our gallant Magyar friends do so they have great cover by quoting Juncker.


And does the deal still look a good one this evening?

Yes, I do back Boris's deal. It might be that leaving with no deal would be better or it might be worse, but I cannot see Parliament voting for it. Not even the next Parliament with somewhat fewer anti-Brexit Tory MPs. 

As Margaret Thatcher was wont to say, there is no alternative. For the time being.

No deal will not go away.As John Baron, a Brexiteer Tory MP, said on TV 

“if trade talks are not successful, we could leave on No Deal terms”. 

His saying that made it harder for the Government whips to try to get enough Labour MPs to vote to pass the deal.


I think Boris gambled by going for this deal and hoping the DUP would feel unable to vote against it. This is how he works, and how all gifted politicians work, by intuition, not by rational planning.

It was obvious to me that Boris wanted a deal rather than to leave with no deal. He wants to win an election and that a good deal is his best chance. I was very surprised that such acute analysts as Charles Moore simply did not know whether Boris wanted a deal.


He said a deal could be made in the last days and it has. He said the Irish would negotiate unilaterally and they did, that the EU would reopen the deal and they did. Shame on all the people, including Rory Stewart and innumerable people in the Independent and Guardian who said, with Olympian disdain, that these things were not possible. Shame most of all on Hilary Benn and his Benn Act that made Boris walk naked in to the conference chamber without the threat of no deal. Shame on Tony Blair, Lord Mandelson and Dominic Grieve.


Does Boris really expect the deal top pass the Commons tomorrow? I doubt he expects it but he hopes it will and wants to force it through by hope and faith and in the case of vacillating MPs charity. determination,  He wins in any case, as the man who did everything he could and was defeated by a political class that did not want to honour the referendum result that they promised to honour when they stood for election last time.

One whip is reported as saying, 

“It’s a tricky operation because on one hand we are telling Labour MPs is a case of deal or no deal and on the other we’re telling Spartans it’s a case of deal or no Brexit". 

In fact no deal seems unlikely for now - but no Brexit is still a real possibility, if a new government is formed for example led by John Bercow or Ken Clarke.

The DUP think they have been hung out to dry by Boris, after they conceded the principle of customs checks in the North Sea. But he is keeping his promise to take the whole UK out of the EU, Northern Ireland included, with a new customs arrangement capable of being replaced in the future, if so desired, by Stormont.

But the DUP have been very stupid. They have foregone a wonderful deal they could have made with the EU and Westminster for slowly being talked into assenting to the deal. The deal will help the Northern Irish economy much more than leaving with no deal would, and in particular would favour Protestant farmers.

Ruth Dudley Edwards said in the Daily Mail,

"A hard-line but pragmatic Unionist friend wrote the following to me today:
"‘Here,’ he said, ‘is what I would say to the DUP. Get real! This [Brexit deal] isn’t ideal, but it could put Northern Ireland in a terrific position as a gateway between the EU and the UK/world economy.
"‘Also, our position in the UK is frankly shaky – the medium-term outlook demographically is terrible and the DUP aren’t to be the olive branch Unionism needs into RC communities and people in GB have limited patience. So in short, shut up, DUP.’"

I suspect no Tory MPs in the end will follow the DUP's lead.

Former Official Unionist First Minister of Northern Ireland Lord (David) Trimble backs the new Brexit deal and certifies that it is ‘fully in accordance with the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement'. As we all knew.

Yesterday's deal is significantly different from Mrs May's. It gets rid of the backstop rather than renaming it and it enables the UK to make free trade agreements with the USA and other countries. The EU had been talked into believing a customs border between Northern Ireland and the Republic would breach the Belfast Agreement and lead to violence. it would never be possible to rid them of this idea which Theresa May confirmed when she promised not to have a customs barrier in Ireland. 

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard dislikes the deal but thinks we should settle for it and points out that if Boris wins the next election after the deal is agreed,

the negotiating dynamic with Brussels will be different in 2020. The EU will not be able to play off Westminster tribes against each other so easily. The cliff edge for the UK will be less severe since the May/Johnson deal does resolve a string of technical issues such as nuclear ties under Euratom or landing rights for aircraft, etc.

This makes a WTO walk-out more plausible, and therefore more menacing for the EU as it tries to preserve its £95bn trade surplus with the UK (while offering no reciprocal access for services, of course).

Olly Robbins was overheard in a bar saying the backstop would be a bridge to a deal - a deal that would pretty much be like remaining in a customs union with the EU. Boris's aim is to have a free trade agreement with the EU without the EU's excessive regulation. I hope for Canada dry but doubt the EU will wear it - but we shall have the threat of no deal to help persuade them.

Deputy Chief Constable Julie Cook's 2 minute address to the nation marking International Pronouns Day

I failed to link to DCC Julie Cook's 2 minute speech marking #pronounsday, standing in front of a screen with Cheshire Constabulary written on it, about the importance when addressing or speaking about "transgender people" of using the pronouns those people prefer. Here it is. 

I also apologise for saying she was a DC - Detective Constable -  whereas she is someone with lots of power, a Deputy Chief Constable.

Her somewhat menacing pronouncement was much retweeted and roundly abused by a nation that is not yet supine.  

She was accused of virtue-signalling but there was no virtue in what she was saying, from a small-c conservative point of view, but only a power-grab by the police and an attempt to change individuals and society. 

Why can't society be allowed to evolve organically, without help from the police?