CAMERON LASHES OUT

 

THE LORD NORTH OF OUR TIMES.

David Cameron has lashed out at the Prime Minister and Michael Gove over their behaviour in the 2016 referendum. There was much that was disreputable in Johnson and Gove’s campaigning. But the fact remains that Cameron was responsible for the decision to hold the referendum. From next week the Prime Minister who ran away from the chaos he created will be flogging his memoirs in a bookshop near you.

He’ll be hoping the focus on his decision to hold a referendum will die down and he’ll be able to talk about how he made the nasty party electable, solved the economic crisis and allowed gay marriage. However, the only question he should be pressed on is this:

In the face of the rise in UKIP support in 2012 why did you take an action which has torn our country apart, risked the union, spent billions on Brexit preparations and made us a laughingstock around the world? In the face of UKIP’s rise why didn’t you have the bravery to proclaim your belief in the benefits of being in the EU and if necessary, lose the election, split your party and resurface as a progressive pro-European party for the future?

Instead in 2013 David Cameron, with his Etonian arrogance promised a simplistic choice on a highly complex question in a referendum, So sure was he of winning that he didn’t even bother to put in a qualifying threshold of, say, 60% for such a fundamental issue.

The rest is sorry history. A Tory majority in 2015 led to an awful referendum campaign. There were lies from Remainers about immediate economic disaster and even bigger ones from Leavers about 80 million Turks coming to Britain, and how easy it would be to get good trade deals with the EU and the world.

The narrowness of the vote to leave was never respected as Farage and his Tory camp followers forced successive Prime Ministers into contemplating No Deal. Now we have parliament suspended, judges insulted, and our main political parties split asunder.

Was it worth it Mr Cameron to save you from a few years in opposition?

AND YET…..

And yet could a deal be done? The Prime Minister’s “majority” is now around minus 40 so DUP support is much less significant.

There is at least the possibility that Johnson will negotiate a Northern Ireland only backstop and accept most of the rest of Mrs May’s deal. He will hope to capitalise on the utter weariness of MPs and the public with the whole thing. The DUP ma and Tory spartans might scream but there are two factors looming up to make it possible that the deal will go through.

Stephen Kinnock can probably muster 30 Labour MPs to vote for it and Johnson can probable convince most Tory MPs to support it. This is because once Brexit is done, he can plausibly promise a good majority in the General Election. In that campaign, Johnson will ridicule Labour’s utterly incoherent position on Europe and will dilute Corbyn’s appeal on ending austerity by pointing to the Conservative promises on schools, police etc.

KEMP FOR PRESIDENT.

Richard Kemp has been a major force for Liberalism in Liverpool for decades. Along with Mike Storey, he took the party to power in the city in 1998 and was a former leader of the Lib Dems on the Local Government Association.

Now he’s standing for and deserves to win the party’s Presidency. His message may be uncomfortable reading for the party establishment assembling in Bournemouth for their conference. Richard wants to build up the Lib Dems from the grassroots. He says recent defections to the party, like Wavertree’s Luciana Berger, will only have a short-term effect “unless underpinned by a phalanx of councillors and strong community action”.

 

 

JOHNSON STUMBLES

 

In his first few weeks Boris Johnson seemed to carry all before him. Opponents of No Deal were wrong footed by a Prime Minister promising a No Deal Brexit and promises to spend billions on police, the NHS and schools.

But in the last few days Johnson’s zealotry on No Deal has seen the expulsion from the Tory Party of two former Chancellors and Winston Churchill’s grandson, the revelation that the government’s claim to be seriously negotiating in Brussels is a sham and two humiliating defeats in the Commons.

I have been very critical of the failure of anti No Dealers and Remainers to get their act together sooner. As I write it is still not certain that the anti no deal legislation will pass the Lords. The parliamentary mayhem of the last few days is partly because they didn’t get their act together in the summer and, for instance, prevent the party conference recess.

It also led to a cock up which allowed Labour MP Stephen Kinnock’s amendment to revive Mrs May’s Brexit deal be included in the anti no deal bill.

Nevertheless, late in the day twenty one Conservatives had the courage to stand up against their own party. A party now heavily infiltrated by former UKIP members. There is much attention on ultra-left entryism into Labour, but it is more serious with the Tories. A party that once prided itself in supporting a One Nation concept, and even under Margaret Thatcher, embraced and enhanced our membership of the European Union is now the Brexit Party lite, and not that lite either.

Former Chancellor Philip Hammond’s angry interview on the Today programme reminded me of Geoffrey Howe’s deadly undermining of Margaret Thatcher in 1990. Both were mild mannered, previously loyal Chancellors; but when they decided to make a move, their last hurrahs were effective. Hammond exposed the fact that the government weren’t seriously negotiating in Brussels. He pointed to the hypocrisy of Boris Johnson, who regularly voted against Mrs May’s deal now expelling senior figures in the Conservative Party at the behest of Downing Street aide Dominic Cummings, who wasn’t even a Conservative.

Such is the level of distrust in Boris Johnson that Labour are quite right to refuse to support a General Election until there is no chance at all of us leaving without a deal. The Prime Minister could refuse to present the no deal bill to the Queen for Royal Assent. If a mid-October election date was agreed and parliament was prorogued, one could envisage Boris Johnson announcing that, on further consideration more time was needed to discuss the issues in the General Election. A date could be fixed after Oct 31 when we would have left automatically. The fury of parliamentarians would be countered with some tosh about doing anything it takes to implement the 2016 Referendum result.

These thoughts will be rapidly overtaken by events. I still fear we are going to leave the EU, but let’s retain the belated energy shown by no deal and Remainer opponents for the future re-entry campaign when the scales fall from people’s eyes.

 

JOHNSON HOLDS MOST OF THE CARDS.

  • REMAINERS BLINDSIDED.

    I mostly agree with our MD, Frank Mckenna, in his excellent blog about the PM’s “coup” yesterday.
    Remainers are bleating about having time snatched away, why did they support the business motion allowing a three-week conference recess in the summer before the House rose?
    The truth is they have had plenty of time to plan a strategy but have never been able to agree on anything. The SNP are for straight revocation of our leaving the EU. The Lib Dems want a second referendum. Some Tory rebels agree with that, some want a very soft Brexit. Labour have been hopelessly split.
    Even during August, with Johnson in Downing Street, there has been no agreement on the grand strategy. Firstly, Corbyn tried to get the government’s opponents to unite around his idea of leading an emergency government. That was never going to fly. So, on Monday they switched to the legislative approach.
    That seems to have spooked Johnson into his outrageous move to dispense with parliament for a whole month this autumn. Does this popinjay of a Prime Minister think we are all fools when he says he needs a Queen’s Speech on Oct 14th to outline his plans for the next session of parliament? He could have waited until November. Indeed, it would have been sensible to do so, as he has a multi-billion pound uncosted list of promises to fulfil. He may well have to curb his pre-election bribes when the chaos of a No Deal Brexit is let loose on us after Halloween.
    There is just a chance that the government’s disgraceful behaviour might galvanise the Remainer rabble into some coherent attempt to legislate to stop a No Deal. They will have the assistance of the Speaker. By the way I do not support Bercow’s decision to strip away any pretence of his impartiality. The Tories may no confidence him if they get a majority.
    But a stop Brexit bill stands little chance of success. Time is now very short and Tory peers could filibuster the measure.
    While Remainers are all over the place, both sections of extreme Brexit are well organised. Farage’s Brexit Party are now demanding a No Deal Brexit. The removal of the backstop is no longer good enough for them. They don’t want to pay our dues to Europe or salvage any element of Mrs May’s deal.
    The government are also in the extreme Brexit camp, still frightened by people to the right of them as Cameron and May have been since this sorry saga began in 2013.
    No respect is offered to the 48% who voted Remain. There is no acknowledgment that such a tight result required the softest Brexit or a second vote. No respect is offered to the one and a half million people who in 24 hours have called for this to be stopped.
    Remain voters have been let down by Prime Ministers May and Johnson but most of all by dithering Remain MPs in the Commons.

  • NOT BURIED

    In the late seventies I reported every week from Gigg Lane for Piccadilly Radio on Bury’s games. It was always a friendly club and I am so sad it has lost its football league status.
    I hope it can start again a few leagues down and come back. Look at what Fleetwood and Salford did coming up the non-league tree. Bury 2019 FC owned by its magnificent fans can surely rise again. Come on you Shakers.

CORBYN’S CUNNING PLAN FOR BREXIT.

I must confess for a moment I thought Jeremy Corbyn had offered a clear path to stopping, at least, a No Deal Brexit.
The Labour leader proposed that all opposition parties and rebel Tories back a no confidence vote early next month. If carried they should then support a Corbyn led government whose sole purpose would be to hold a General Election. In the campaign Labour would be committed to a public vote on leaving the EU with an option to remain on the ballot paper.
This seemed to me a more effective way to block Johnson than the route preferred by Tory rebels to seize control of the Commons order paper and legislate to stop a No Deal Brexit.
Reaction from the opposition parties has been lukewarm, without being dismissive. The exception has been the Liberal Democrats, now 14 strong with the arrival of Sarah Wollaston. Their new leader, Jo Swinson, has pointed to the major problem in the Corbyn proposal, Corbyn himself.
She points out that his journey to a public vote with an option to remain has been painfully slow. We should not be surprised as Corbyn has regarded the EU as a capitalist club since the 1970s. It is also worth reminding ourselves what Labour’s current convoluted policy is on Brexit. It is to oppose any deal put forward by Boris Johnson BUT if a Labour government came to power, it would negotiate a soft Brexit and put that to the people, presumably with an option on the ballot paper to remain. This is why Labour MPs continue to choke when they are asked the simple question “is Labour a remain or leave party?”
What would Labour do if Corbyn was Prime Minister after a General Election about Brexit? Presumably another extension would be needed while he negotiated a soft Brexit with us close to the single market and customs union. Although Corbyn is likely to allow a remain option on the ballot paper, he would surely campaign for his deal to leave. It would be his deal, he would be respecting the 2016 referendum vote, and he’s wanted out all along.
This is why the Liberal Democrats are taking such a tough stand. They believe in the purity of their unqualified opposition to Brexit and fear it would be tainted by supporting Corbyn’s proposition. However, it is a gamble by Jo Swinson, who is being tested in her first month in office. This is because, without Lib Dem support, the Corbyn strategy is almost impossible to achieve.
For instance, how many Tories, apart from Dominic Grieve and Guto Bebb, are actually going to vote to put Corbyn in power? Bebb argues that even a Marxist Labour government is only in office for a few years whereas the damage caused by us being outside the EU will last for decades. He’s right of course, but how many Tories will buy that?
The option of Ken Clarke or Tom Watson heading an emergency government is sensible, but you cannot expect Jeremy Corbyn and his hard-line handlers to concede the toxicity of the Labour leader.
So, at the moment, it looks as if nothing can stop a No Deal Brexit. Corbyn will then be out of the EU and when the economic mayhem follows he will be able to say he did his best to stop it, but hope to come to power profiting from the far left doctrine that people need to suffer a full blown capitalist crisis before they turn to radical socialist answers.