Brexit Bulletin: A dystopian nightmare redolent with the stench of self-interest and decay

 

‘In the year of the scavenger, the season of the bitch’ ¹

 

And so today, the 29^th March 2019, was to have been the day we left the EU. Instead, we are submerged in detritus, led by a government so enfeebled that it governs in name only.

Today’s, beyond desperate roll the dice failed, when MPs rejected, for a third-time, the PM’s EU withdrawal agreement by 344 votes to 286, a majority of 58, throwing UK’s Brexit plans into more confusion.

Mrs May said the vote would have ‘grave’ implications and the ‘legal default’ was that the UK would leave on 12 April.

‘we are submerged in detritus, led by a government so enfeebled that it governs in name only’

Last weekend, 1 million people marched in favour of a second referendum, 5 million people signed an online petition to revoke Article 50, and then the government lost an important vote in the House.

All the time our Leader sails on ignoring everyone and everything, the only thing that moves her is the discontent within her own party, nothing else, and no one else matters.

This has ceased to be about us, our country, our future, it is simply an exercise in keeping the party together and in power. Generation of voters are being ignored, treated as if they don’t matter, because in their eyes we are simply cannon fodder, useful only to keep them in-power. Many people were proud to vote Tory, but now…..

 

‘Once I ran to you (I ran), Now I’ll run from you’ ²

 

Yet, they cannot see it; on Monday, Liam Fox has indicated the government could ignore MPs’ views from indicative Brexit votes this week if Parliament’s stated choice goes against the Conservative manifesto, insisting the real choice is still between Theresa May’s deal and no deal.

Best, go back to the trade deals, Liam; remember them?

Of the 8 indicative votes that were ignored by the government, on Wednesday, only 2 gained any real traction; a customs union was defeated by only 8 votes, and a second referendum by 27 votes.

‘in their eyes we are simply cannon fodder’

And a second referendum is what is now needed, one that gives people the opportunity to vote with open eyes, and to see how hollow the promises were.

Instead of £350m a week for the NHS we are to be saddled with a £39bn divorce bill, all of which will have it to be borrowed with the repayment burden shouldered by young people already under-water with tuition fees.

As parents we seek to ensure the next generation has a better, easier life; that should be aided by government and cannot be achieved by going it alone, or by the delusion that Donald Trump offers us an easy way out.

This is not the genteel world of Victorian and Edwardian England, all afternoon teas and punting on the Cam, the real world is one of terrorism, international tax avoidance, giant corporations, superpowers, mass migration, the rise of the far right, climate change and a host of other threats.

We cannot deal with that on our own, Europe might be able to take on the US tech-firms and their ‘tax-planning’, we cannot.

The pin-up of the Tory party, Margaret Thatcher, would have been appalled to see Britain excluded from the top table, as was the case last week when the PM was excluded from a meeting of our former partners and presented with a take-it-or-leave-it offer.

‘Margaret Thatcher would have been appalled to see Britain excluded from the top table’

Mrs Thatcher was a politician, Mrs May isnt; she has consistently sowed division rather than seeking consensus. Her Brexit strategy designed only to keep the Conservative party unified and her premiership secure, the national interest didn’t even register.

She has continuously trampled over Parliament, not allowing it a say over triggering Article 50, granting a meaningful vote on her deal only when literally forced to do so, and then trying to force MPs into voting for her deal by delaying vote after vote until the end-date was nigh and it was the only option.

Last week’s televised address was the final insult to everyone; populist language more akin to a third-world dictator looking to stamp-out an irritating parliament.

The 2016 referendum only established that there was a narrow majority of voters in favour of leaving the EU, nothing else. The PM took it upon herself to invent a mandate that would bolster Tory unity, adopting red lines on scrapping freedom of movement and leaving the customs union that reflected her party’s Eurosceptic flank rather than public sentiment. In 2017, a citizens’ assembly, run by University College London’s constitution unit, with membership that demographically represented the UK and the Leave-Remain split:

 

• 70% were in favour of maintaining freedom of movement by the end of the deliberative process, so long as the UK made full use of existing controls.

 

The real impetus for May’s Brexit comes not from the ‘will of the people’ but from the hard right of the Conservative party. In many overseas country’s key figures from the hard-right such as Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg are curiosities with views that are openly laughed at, for example, who leaves the world’s biggest trading bloc and tries to go it alone in a world of unforgiving strangers?

This has been why no country has ever done what Britain is attempting; trade agreements are a carefully balanced meeting of mutual minds an markets with a hard-to-work-through calculus of gains and losses that takes years to complete.

Brexiters promised that this would be different, that unravelling a 45-year-old tangle of deep relationships would be quick and effortless, with Britain ‘holding all the cards’. Whereas the reality is anything but; 49% of our exports got the EU, only 10% of theirs comes the other way; who holds all the cards?

All this brave talk of standing heroically alone is just that, noise! These arch-Brexiters cannot or will not see this. All they seek is to sacrifice the influence that Britain has in Europe and becoming a vassal of the protectionist and self-interested United States.

Despite the social upheaval in the twentieth century, of the sweeping social changes caused by two world wars, we are still a country in thrall to the class system. ‘Plummy accents are evidence not of potential bird-brains but, rather, ‘natural’ authority; our unbroken faith in British exceptionalism; and our connivance in mind-boggling social inequalities.’

This has the become the Tory party personified, not least by the party activists whose influence should never be underestimated.

Former attorney general Dominic Grieve’s open admission that he is ashamed of his party is further evidence that there are people in the party who can now see its dysfunctionality.

‘Dominic Grieve’s open admission that he is ashamed of his party’

The party has gone backwards, becoming obsessed with sustaining privileges, that have, once again, become social signifiers of status, particularly important in England’s counties and small towns.  It is this that way of thinking that is being carried into political office.

Yesterday, my son was queuing for his before work coffee in a North London cafe with Jeremy Corbyn behind him, and he wrote ‘nice guy, quite chatty’. ‘I’ve not met May but can safely say he has better people skills than her.’ ‘It’s quite nice to see him queuing up for a coffee and then sitting down and saying hey to everyone.’

The difference, of course, is very simple, Mrs May wouldn’t even dream of doing that

To many, being a Tory was, and still is, a badge of one’s soundness and social acceptability, exemplifying the top of England, which is why its leaders consistently put party unity before loyalty to country. In their mind, it is one and the same.

Unfortunately, it is becoming a vengeful English national party whose strategic goal is the blind assertion of sovereignty in order to build their idea of utopia, resulting in Johnson, who seems to speak before he thinks, and not always honestly, being the front runner to succeed PM.

Lastly we turn to this week’s go to story, one that sums up everything I have just written, ‘playgrounds only for the rich kids’.

Is this the ultimate social experiment, a grotesque calamity of social apartheid? Now, before anyone complains, I know it is being reversed, but only after so much adverse publicity and condemnation.

‘Is this the ultimate social experiment, a grotesque calamity of social apartheid?’

The question must be asked, what sort of warped mind came up with the idea in the first-place.

But, through adversity can come good. In yesterday, evening newspaper, Johnny Mercer, the tory MP for Plymouth Moor View wrote a column where hope shone through like a beacon;

 

• ‘ The process of Brexit has stripped bare the abilities of the ‘career politician’ to meet and understand the challenges posed by a country that voted to leave the European Union, but was in fact giving its verdict on a Westminster that they thought had no idea, let alone cared, about what it was like to walk in their shoes. It’s time for genuine, authentic change.’
• I’m constantly told how all the figures are improving — jobs, wealth, income inequality, health. And yet, as I walk from Victoria station to Westminster every week, I see more and more people homeless than ever before. Yes, the country has changed since the Conservatives have been in power. But who has it really changed for? ‘

 

Johnny, you can have my vote any day, as for the rest of your lot, well

 

‘I just don’t mean the things that I say, it’s only ’cause you’re made that way’ ³

 

OK lyric spotters, another triple treat this week; one’s a gimmie, one’s a teaser and anyone identifying the third gets a double helpin of the Eton Mess that was being served up in the House of Commons cafe last week, as well as just around the corner in the chamber.

¹ First out of the blocks is the middling; bit of a clue in the title and you may kick yourself if you don’t identify David Bowie’s ‘Diamond Dogs’.

² Ideally suited for a readership that embraces the concept of a Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, I’m guessing that Soft Cell’s ‘Tainted Love’ should cause you few problems.

³ Bringing up the rear is a very strange boy – its Josef K with ‘Sorry for Laughing’; top marks if you got that one, and now that you’ve watched video on green slime, can you ever go back yo YouTube?

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

Philip Gilbert is a city-based corporate financier, and former investment banker.

Philip is a great believer in meritocracy, and in the belief that if you want something enough you can make it happen. These beliefs were formed in his formative years, of the late 1970s and 80s

 

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