We can now see the twin track strategy of Boris Johnson and his enforcer, Dominic Cummings, to achieve a No Deal exit from the EU and, possibly at the same time, a convincing Tory General Election victory.
The European Commission and the member states are rightly not budging. Whilst one can’t rule out them blinking at the last minute, the aggressive behaviour of the Johnson government seems designed to ensure that there are no autumn talks in Brussels to resolve the impasse.
Against this background we need to examine the huge task facing MPs who want to stop No Deal and the avalanche of election sweeteners that are coming from Number 10. The strategy is clear. Provoke a confrontation with the EU and the Commons and have a General Election campaign with an appeal to the people that Parliament is frustrating their will to Leave. The manifesto will be spiced with promises on schools, police and elderly care. This will serve two purposes. One to show that Johnson is a moderate Tory with a caring heart. It will also steal many of Labour’s policies.
Meanwhile each week Labour prove themselves less and less credible as a party of government. The policy on Europe remains confused. The anti-Semitism crisis festers, and now comes the stramash over Scottish independence. Ian Murray was the only Scottish Labour MP to survive the 2015 election, so he is worth listening to. He asks why did the Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, need to promise not to oppose an SNP request to Westminster for a second independence referendum? In the unlikely event that the new parliament threw up a minority Labour government, the SNP would have no choice but to support Labour. They don’t need buying off. The SNP are hardly likely to repeat their 1979 mistake when they brought down the Callaghan government and endured 18 years of a Tory administration set hard against the idea of a Scottish Parliament leave alone a referendum on independence.
The only explanation of McDonnell’s comical behaviour on the Edinburgh fringe is that he is looking at what might happen if a vote of no confidence is passed in the government early in September. Many pundits think it is likely to pass. I calculate it is desperately close. Even if passed constructing a temporary government to stop No Deal won’t be easy. Say McDonnell’s move brings in the SNP, we then have the current refusal of the Lib Dems to support Corbyn. Follow that with the big question of how many Tory MPs are actually going to vote no confidence in their own government? Finally, few commentators talk about the role of the large number of independent MPs. A motley collection of members suspended by their whips or who have left one of the big parties and refused to join another. How will they vote?
If they can get a team together, would Johnson resign? Some of his fanatical supporters say he wouldn’t and might even call a long General Election campaign that would not conclude until after we’ve left the EU.
Most of the cards are in the NO Deal Brexiteers hands at the moment. Remainers need to get their act together fast.
Category: Brexit
BRECON WAKE UP CALL TO REMAINERS
BREXITEERS ON THE FRONT FOOT..
The Brecon victory for the Liberal Democrats should be an encouragement to action by Remaniers because the country is slipping into a dangerous mindset that the only alternatives are a No Deal Brexit or Mrs May’s deal with a Johnson cosmetic tweet.
The hard line Brexiteers now dominate the Cabinet, the parliamentary Conservative Party and the membership in the country. In the Tory shires there is hardly a tissue paper between Tory leavers and Brexit Party members. They move between the two organisations with ease. Why aren’t Tories who join Farage’s mob not banned for 5 years from re-entry? The answer is that since David Cameron’s reckless referendum promise the Conservatives have been either terrified or thrilled by Farage’s anti EU ranting.
One has to concede that this has led to a turbo charging of the message that we must leave the EU with a big bang whatever the price. Visions of a Britain as it used to be, or a world dying to do trade deals with us are proclaimed with conviction. And now with Johnson as prime Minister we have a man who can combine bluster, optimism and humour in a dangerously seductive way. One of the most depressing spectacles is solid working class northerners buying this rubbish. They want to spurn the EU which delivered regional structural funding to deprived communities and believe the promises Johnson is making to the Northern Powerhouse in order to win a General Election.
WHISPERING REMAINERS.
Only the Lib Dems and SNP are prepared to remind people that there is still an opportunity for the UK to remain in the EU. Only those two parties speak with conviction to spread the message that this country’s best interests are in remaining in the EU, exercising our influence between France and Germany to bring badly needed modernisation and democratisation to the institutions based in Brussels.
But the SNP and Lib Dems lack the heft to turn this around. Tory Remainers are marginalised. Oliver Letwin now seems daunted by the task of wrestling control of the machinery of government to introduce a Second Referendum Bill. Labour Remainers have edged their leadership into a sort of Remain position but their heart isn’t in it and neither are the party’s paymasters in Unite the Union.
CABINET FEVER.
You only have to list the names of sacked/resigned Cabinet ministers to see how Johnson has gutted the government of one nation Tories who believed that our best interests were served either by staying in the EU or at worst staying very close. Philip Hammond was a solid Chancellor and Greg Clarke was an excellent Business Secretary. The dismissal of Penny Mordaunt as Defence Secretary was utterly vindictive. She was a Royal Naval reservist, represented Portsmouth and supported Brexit. Her only crime was to back Johnson’s rival, Jeremy Hunt. There are suggestions the Scottish Tory Party might split away because Johnson’s image is so toxic north of the border. His sacking of Scottish Secretary David Mundell and the appointment of an English MP as a Scottish Minister won’t have helped.
NO HONEYMOON FOR THE CLOWN.
REMAIN FORCES NEED TO ACT NOW.
Boris Johnson should be given no time to settle into office. Remain forces need to get their act together, but I fear they won’t. A leaver asked me the other day what is the strategy of those determined to stop Brexit? It’s a good question.
Jeremy Corbyn’s heart isn’t in it. It’s going to take some courage by Tory rebels to vote against a Prime Minister just endorsed decisively by Conservative Party members. Crucially I’ve a feeling the European Union want to give the new PM a small tweak that Johnson can sell to the European Research Group who are looking for a ladder to climb down. The Rees-Mogg mob got locked into a rather personal struggle with Theresa May. If Johnson can get some fudge on the back stop, the ERG will bite his hand off. The ERG will never get a better Prime Minister for their policy of an extreme break from the EU. They are dying to find a way to back him.
Johnson comes into office amid a blizzard of resignations from Tory ministers who wanted an orderly withdrawal from the EU. They respected the former reputation of the conservatives as the party of business. Now they stand for risking destabilising the country because of a pathological obsession about Europe. But how far will former Chancellor Phil Hammond and other rebels against no deal go. There is no sign of a plan to wrestle the parliamentary agenda away from the new government, still less the bill to remove the October 31st deadline from the statute book.
What we are likely to see from Remainers is August agonising whilst Johnson gets a poll boost that usually accompanies a new leader. We also can’t dismiss the effect the call to optimism will have on people, even though it is rooted in nothing. Also look out for actions to loosen the austerity restraints on public spending and action on elderly care. This will be an attempt to ensure that Johnson is not just defined by Brexit.
EARLY WELSH TEST FOR JOHNSON.
Tories in Brecon and Radnor have a big choice to make next week. Do they vote for a candidate who was recalled from parliament after an expenses scandal? The need to avoid the new Prime Minister failing his first electoral test is a powerful incentive. Do they abstain because they can’t support their tainted candidate? Or do they vote for the Brexit Party, not trusting even Boris Johnson to get Britain out of the EU.
The Lib Dems are fighting hard to win back a seat they have frequently held in the past. They will be hoping for a bounce from their new leader Jo Swinson. A Lib Dem victory would reduce the Tory/DUP majority to two and hopefully will encourage all those who want to stop Brexit to actually do something about it.
GENERAL ELECTION CHOICE CLEARER.
Presuming Jeremy Corbyn is not replaced by someone like Kier Starmer, the choice at the General Election has clarified this week with two leadership elections.
We will have Boris Johnson all optimism and very little substance. Jeremy Corbyn weighed down by his Marxist inner circle and an inability to deal with anti-Semitism. Or a bright young woman, Jo Swinson, who has served in government and would offer a real change for this country. She faces a huge challenge with the current electoral system, and she is rightly wary of coalitions with the old parties. We will see how she gets on.
STILL TIME TO VOTE FOR HUNT!
JOHNSON HUMILIATES US.
One must hope that there are enough Tories still to vote that will support Jeremy Hunt. Boris Johnson cynically refused meaningful debate with his opponent or the media until he hoped most had cast their ballot.
Probably its too late to stop the triumph of a man wholly unsuitable to become Prime Minister. We can now add Sir Kim Darroch to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe as victims of this man. The humiliation of a top envoy and the continued incarceration of an innocent woman in an Iranian jail may not worry Tory Party members but it certainly worries the country at large.
Johnson wants us to leave the European Union for the exciting world trade on offer around the world. A crucial element of that is a good treaty with the United States. I have already expressed my view that we face lower food standards and more expensive drugs as a result. We can now see even more clearly what Johnson and Trump doing a deal will mean. Johnson is in thrall to a President who shares so many of his characteristics including a worship of market forces, shooting from the hip with unguarded remarks and a “colourful” private life.
His failure to support our ambassador in Washington was utterly disgraceful. Theresa May should appoint a new envoy to stop someone like Richard Tice from the Brexit Party getting the post under Johnson.
This is what our country will become if we don’t stop Brexit. We will be supine and desperate for trade deals with America and China. We will sacrifice our values for grubby deals as we try and compensate for the loss of our strong economic ties to the EU.
IN THE HUNT.
I’m not a great fan of Jeremy Hunt but he would make a far more reliable Prime Minister than his opponent. Tory members who have still not voted need to ponder the twin dangers of supporting Johnson for their own party. Johnson will always be a few remarks, or a careless decision, away from a serious blunder that could seriously damage the Tories. Also, if his “do or die” Brexit gamble fails, the party will never be forgiven.
Hunt did well in the debate and exposed the total inability or refusal of Johnson to answer important questions. Hunt said an unequivocal yes to HS2, a third runway at Heathrow and to abortion and gay marriage rights in Northern Ireland. Johnson equivocated on all of them.
Hunt looks and acts like a statesman, let’s hope we have another shock victory that will confound the pundits.
LABOUR PAINS.
The agony goes on within Labour. The exposure of the ineffectiveness and even sabotage of the anti-Semitism drive by the BBC this week shows what people like MPs Louise Ellman (Liverpool Riverside) and Luciana Berger (Wavertree) have suffered.
There is clearly a major problem in Liverpool because Stephen Twigg, an effective moderate MP representing West Derby has had enough and will stand down at the next election.
The party has tried to clarify its position on Europe by making it worse. It is against leaving the EU when in opposition but would be negotiating a Leave deal if it were in government with the option to campaign against it! You couldn’t make it up.