HP Source: Armageddon time

 

‘I’d listen to the words he’d say

But in his voice I heard decay

The plastic face forced to portray

All the insides left cold and gray..’

 

No respite from the U-turns this week.

The first is part of the fiction that the government purports to be negotiations with the EU. This was summed-up by the headline in The Daily Telegraph, ‘Brexit deal never made sense.’

This is the deal that the PM negotiated, and which became the centrepiece of an election campaign which gave him an 80-seat majority. His Brexit deal, the one he promised was ‘oven ready.’

The double dealing of the government was highlighted by Bernard Jenkin, who chairs the steering group of the European Research Group of Tory MPs, who said Brexit would not be done until the UK government had asserted its own interpretation of the withdrawal agreement; ‘We only have a WA [withdrawal agreement] because Eurosceptic Conservatives, such as myself, voted for it to help the nation out of a paralysing political crisis,’ Jenkin wrote.’ We made clear, however, that this agreement was barely ‘tolerable’ and only voted for it against assurances given by government: that it was just a starting point for negotiations; that it would be superseded by a full FTA [free trade agreement]; and, if needs be, could be repudiated.’

He continued, saying that pro-Brexit Conservatives would demand Johnson renege from that legally binding agreement if no deal is reached within five weeks.

‘If we don’t reach a deal with the EU, Brexit is not done until the UK government succeeds in its determination to assert its own interpretation of the withdrawal agreement. If the EU is unwilling to do a deal with us, there are two options. The first is to enact domestic legislation that will largely nullify the direct effect and direct applicability of EU law. We have the mandate and majority to do this.’

‘Second, if the EU insists on an unreasonable interpretation of the withdrawal agreement, the UK must stand ready to repudiate it. I hope it is not necessary, but if it is the only way to achieve UK prosperity and the kind of sovereign independence which is the democratic right of any nation recognised under the UN charter, then so be it. And most other nations would respect us for that.’
 

‘Yes, this does break international law in a very specific and limited way’.

 

Actions of this nature will make us a pariah within the international community. Yesterday, the Northern Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis, told the House of Commons: ‘Yes, this does break international law in a very specific and limited way. We’re taking the powers to disapply the EU law concept of direct effect … in a certain very tightly defined circumstance.’

Bollocks, Brandon, you have just been caught breaking the law, period!

The threat to our global reputation has led to another high-profile civil service resigning; Jonathan Jones, the most senior official in the government’s legal department.

Not surprisingly this was condemned by Ireland’s foreign affairs minister, Simon Coveney, who helped broker the original Brexit settlement. He said any change would be ‘very unwise’.

Labour said the prime minister was ‘threatening to renege on the UK’s legal obligations’ and called it ‘an act of immense bad faith: one that would be viewed dimly by future trading partners and allies around the world’.

Strangely the only true words said by the government are those of the seriously mis-guided Bernard Jenkins.

Johnson favours No Deal, and many in his party demand it. This is the inevitable consequence of giving him such a large majority, he has the mandate to push through a hard-Brexit, his whole cabinet has been selected for their adherence to this outcome.
 

‘Johnson favours No Deal, and many in his party demand it’

 

His apparent repudiation of the treaty he himself agreed muddies the waters, making it harder for the EU to find an agreement within such a short timeframe.

The government knows this, and its insistence that it will keep trying and talking is no more than smoke and mirrors. It will allow them to tell the electorate that they wanted to reach an agreement, they kept talking, it was the EU that was being unreasonable, giving the public a scapegoat to blame for their on sleight of hand.

Populism, as I have written before, functions because it gives the electorate someone to blame, demonstrating that the government is the ‘voice of the people’.

Alongside this is a passing acquaintance with the truth. Both are traits of Johnson and Trump, who it was revealed in a new book by Kim Darroch, a former British ambassador to the US, fascinates, especially the US president’s patchy relationship ‘with the facts and the truth’.

In an interview accompanying the excerpts, Darroch was asked if any of those characteristics had rubbed off on Johnson. ‘From what I hear from colleagues, this government pays a lot of attention to presentation, to language,’ he said. ‘But if you go back through the current prime minister’s history, he’s often said quite striking things.

And he never apologises. So, Boris might have done this anyway, but certainly, having watched Trump in action, he wouldn’t have been put off.’
 

‘Kill yr. idols, sonic death

It’s the end of the world and confusion is sex..’

 

This admiration marks today’s second U-turn; ‘quite stupefying ignorance’, for saying that the city was blighted by Islamist-controlled ‘no-go areas’. Trump was ‘frankly unfit to hold the office of president of the United States’.

Yes, 100% correct! But this was said by Johnson in 2015, when he was London mayor

Two years later, when foreign secretary, Johnson told the US ambassador that President Trump was doing ‘fantastic stuff’ and ‘making America great again’.

In a meeting of British business leaders in July 2018, Johnson recognised that Trump showed signs of madness, but admired the method in it. He saw how this might be applied to Brexit: ‘There’d be all sorts of breakdowns, all sorts of chaos … But actually you might get somewhere.’
 

‘Johnson recognised that Trump showed signs of madness, but admired the method in it’

 

Johnson is a chameleon, he copies Trump some of the time, whilst people who know him insist his persona is that of the metropolitan liberal at ease in the multicultural capital he played as mayor of London, not the chest-beating style of Farage .

Whilst this may be true that ship has sailed, his majority was won by his hard-right Brexiteer incarnation.

The real difference between Johnson and Farage is that the conservatives consider the latter crude, but effective at poaching votes from them.

The goal is the same, total separation from the EU, but they want sovereignty not nationalism, apparently it sounds better, and were not comfortable with some of his anti-immigration rhetoric.

Likewise, No.10 is coy about Trump; too vulgar, too brash, too American. We prefer our nationalism dressed in genteel hypocrisy, rather than combat fatigues and automatic rifle.

The reality is that both Johnson and Trump exploited similar grievances to win their mandates, and, once elected, share a common ethos of ripping up rules, ignoring constitutions and burning old alliances.
 

‘We prefer our nationalism dressed in genteel hypocrisy, rather than combat fatigues’

 

The big difference is that the US is a global superpower whilst we still think we are. Our peers are France and Germany, our alliance with them via the EU made us part of a dominant trio within the Union, enhancing Britain’s global power.

For a Britain free of the EU the world is a scary place. Four-years ago our saviour appeared to be a trade deal with China, however, Trumps avowed policy of de-coupling from China, means that China is now the West’s clear economic foe, therefore China will be closed to us.

Should Biden become president he will change the current US policy of spite towards the EU, leaving Britain isolated as the only democracy practising tantrum diplomacy.

Should Trump win a second term Johnson would understand that ‘incendiary rhetoric works; that the limit of decency defined by constitutional lawyers is a laughable fiction; that the anguished cries of liberals herald success; that elections are won through perpetual culture-war provocation.

Any doubts Johnson might have about that approach would be discarded as casually as every other scruple he claims to have known.’

Trump had also considered Johnson ‘a kindred spirit’, according to the former ambassador, which is very worrying when you consider that Donald Trump is the most grotesque, evil individual ever to have sought, let alone won, the presidency of the US.

This is the president who described US troops who died for their country as ‘losers’ and ‘suckers’, demanding that a military parade exclude wounded veterans, lest spectators glimpse an amputee. ‘Nobody wants to see that,’ he said.
 

‘Executive order, congressional decision

The working masses are manipulated

Was this our policy?’

 

So immune are his voters to this rhetoric that these comments just pass them by, they write it off as more fake news. As he always said, ‘he could shoot people on Fifth Avenue and they’d still vote for him.’

His administration has caused nearly 200,000 people die due to the pandemic he refused to admit was happening, and for which his proposed remedy was self-injected bleach. The US economy is a mess, racked by mass unemployment, yet, despite this he maintains the support of 42% of the American people.

As I have continued to say, in this election not only is the presidency at stake, so is the US’s standing as a democracy.

This week, Trump urged his supporters to vote twice; in a series of Twitter messages that the social media company hid from view for violating its rules on ‘civic and election integrity’, Trump told his followers to vote early by mail-in ballot and then turn up in person on election day to vote again. This is the law-and-order candidate urging Americans to break the law.
 

‘in this election not only is the presidency at stake, so is the US’s standing as a democracy’

 

His defence: he only wanted people to test the robustness of the system – because if the system worked, then his supporters shouldn’t be allowed to cast that second.

This part of an ongoing message from him, condemning postal votes as they were bound to lead to ‘the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT election in history’. He has installed a Republican donor as head of the US Postal Service who is cutting the service’s ability to process mail-in ballots in time and starving the post office of cash. Trump isn’t ashamed to admit this: ‘If they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting because they’re not equipped to have it.’

At his convention last month, he urged the crowd, who had been chanting for ‘four more years’ to call instead for ‘12 more years’, even though that too would violate the constitution. Additionally, he continues to confirm whether he will accept defeat and leave office if that’s what the voters decide.

Trump is preparing the ground to challenge the electorate’s verdict, arguing that the result cannot be trusted because postal votes shouldn’t count. The data suggests that postal voters are more likely to support Biden, therefore he wants them disqualified leaving only the votes cast on election day, from which Trump reckons he could achieve a narrow victory.
 

‘Trump is preparing the ground to challenge the electorate’s verdict’

 

If he can’t win then he needs to cast doubt on the result, this is what he is leading up to. His diehard supporters will cry fraud, groundlessly suggesting that the mail-in votes are forgeries, allowing him to argue that the election was disputed and therefore there was no good reason for him to leave office.

Worryingly the attorney general, William Barr, supposedly the most senior law enforcement officer in the land, this week refused to say whether voting twice was against the law!

Republicans have consistently tried to suppress the vote, especially the Black vote, as Trump brazenly told Fox News that if voting was easier and turnout went up, ‘you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again’. As Obama warned Trump is willing to ‘tear our democracy down if that’s what it takes to win’.

The proliferation of extreme right politicians has been one of the costs of the GFC and subsequent divide between haves and have nots. These politicians publicly shame those who disagree and purge them from their roles in government. The fight against the radical right is a fight for the preservation of liberal democracy.
 

‘his defeat is a necessity not just for the United States but for humanity’

 

Trump is prepared to undermine the American constitution. His administration is staffed by his cronies and relatives, he encourages far-right terrorism, and is prepared to rig the forthcoming election to ensure victory. Given the anarchic glee that Trump and the Republicans display when they block defensive measures against global warming, his defeat is a necessity not just for the United States but for humanity.

The political power being amassed by the extreme right impacts tens, if not hundreds of millions of people not just in the United States and Britain, but also in Hungary, Poland, Russia, India, Turkey, Brazil and the Philippines. All are determined to curb any institution that might curb them.

I have longed talked of a return to the politics of the 1930’s, by that I was referring to the rise of right-wing authoritarian governments, fascism. This time there is no left-wing opposition as there was with Stalinist Russia in the 1930s.

Perhaps the closest to that was the Labour party under Corbyn, but even there the far left is on its way out, not dissimilar to the Democrats in the US who have turned to a more centrist ticket in selecting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

The radical right has overrun mainstream conservatism. In the US, only Mitt Romney and a handful of Republican politicians have risked losing office by fighting to stop their party being taken over by.

Here, some Conservative MP’s were prepared to oppose No Deal were either purged by Johnson or walked away from the party in despair at the last election.

Today, with 3-months to go before we could crash out of the EU, not one prominent Conservative politician is prepared to speak, or debate the situation.

This silence allied extends to the conservative press, thinktanks and intellectuals, and shows how effective Johnson has been in imposing a party line.

And it doesn’t stop here; on Saturday in London, more than 10,000 people gathered, without masks or social distancing, to protest against what event posters branded the ‘new normal’ under coronavirus: masks, lockdown restrictions, and the spectre of mandatory vaccination and privacy-obliterating health passports.

The messaging asked marchers to ‘Unite for Freedom’ from state control. Headline speakers included the usual mix of loonies:
 

• doctors and nurses suspended by their governing bodies for claiming coronavirus was a globalist hoax,
• Piers Corbyn, a long-time anti-vaxxer and climate-change denier,
• David Icke, a fabulist famous for his books rejigging classic antisemitic conspiracy theories to include reptile people originating from the fourth dimension.

 

Among the marchers several T-shirts and signs alluded to QAnon, the US conspiracy movement I wrote about last week (here) and some men unfurled a British Union of Fascists flag at the crowd’s edge. In a similar protest in Berlin the same day which drew nearly 20,000 people, a far-right contingent attempted to storm the Reichstag.
 

‘It was still at the stage of clubs and fists

When that well-known face got beaten to bits….’

 

This isn’t just the activities of cranks and loonies showing

It would be easy to dismiss these events as a random mishmash of the merely selfish with assorted cranks exhibiting misguided public frustration with the events of the past few months, but the continuing abstention of large swathes of the public from what could be termed our shared reality.

The attendees are part of a shifting coalition of conspiracist and far-right groups. One of the primary organisers of Saturday’s protest is a UK-based anti-5G movement known as Stand Up X (or by the incredible acronym ‘SUX’), who are reputed to have links with a US-linked, QAnon-friendly outfit in Manchester and other UK cities.
 

‘should Biden win, we will once again be standing alone, only this time we won’t be the good guys!’

 

All of this is part of conspiratorial thinking and far-right politics. Over the last few years the anti-vax movement has become more pointedly right wing, while mainstream far-right and right-populist parties have become more conspiratorial.

The Italian Five Star Movement and Northern League have recently questioned vaccine effectiveness, as has France’s Front National.

In Hungary, Viktor Orbán regularly suggests the Jewish financier George Soros is about to swamp the country with migrants. And Trump this week claimed his opponent Joe Biden was ‘controlled’ by ‘people that you’ve never heard of. People that are in the dark shadows.’

When I first wrote about the pandemic, I tried to find positives that would come from it, more sustainable projects, a better society, an increased role for the state and traditional institutions.

Instead, political extremism seems to be gaining traction. For now, it thrives only on the fringes, but don’t bet against it entering the mainstream.

A defeat for Trump would likely be its death knell, assuming he accepts the result and doesn’t create a political revolution within the US. ‘Trump has destroyed America as an example for the world to follow and authorised every reaction against it. Extremism begets extremism. When you have an unapologetic racist as American president, all opposition is legitimate.’

In the UK we have a government prepared to flout international agreements we signed, and the electorate supported. In January, should Biden win, we will once again be standing alone, only this time we won’t be the good guys!
 

‘Look at the hate we’re breeding

Look at the fear we’re feeding

Look at the lives we’re leading

The way we’ve always done before..’

 

A massively powerful and angry piece from Philip this week; I’m genuinely aghast that things can seemingly consistently get more unhinged over such a long period of time – and where else are you going to get Viktor Orbán and David Icke in the same story?

There’s a palpable rising of tension as we career towards a no deal Brexit whilst ensuring that once we are in the big wide world – possibly alone if Biden wins – that we look thoroughly untrustworthy by being prepared to ‘break international law in a very specific and limited way’. Pardon?

With pro-Brexit Tories heaping on the pressure, there can be little prospect of a negotiated settlement, giving Boris someone to blame.

Events on the other side of the Pond are even more surreal and with Trump’s climate change denial, Philip reaches even further to suggest that a the Donald’s defeat is ‘a necessity not just for the United States but for humanity.

Real aggression from Philip’s tracks this week, and probably the most powerfully apposite selection to date although just 17 points up for grabs; socially distanced entries will be accepted at the usual venue, but please observe the all new ‘Rule of 6’ – unless you are in Wales.

First off the rank  ‘a US band heavily influenced by Gary Numan and given their break by Bowie; – 3 pts for Nine Inch Nails; second ‘perhaps the best of the US indie bands of the last 30-yrs’ – 3 pts for Sonic Youth.

Next ‘US hardcore at its best, they wrote short songs which is a clue to their name’ – 3 pts for the excellent ‘Minutemen’; then ‘proving we can write a protest song is this weeks’ gimme’ 1 pt for The Clash and 1 pt for English Civil War’.

Finally, ‘I can’t stand stadium rock, but when it’s this good I can forgive them’ – 3 pts for Guns N’ Roses and 3 pts for the powerful and challenging ‘Civil War’. Not a pretty thought, but mounting tensions on either side of the Pond, and few signs of humility and compromise. 
 

 
 

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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