Sales of Dr Farage's patent snake oil are still going well. He and the other Brexiteers must be surprised. They are the first snake oil salesmen in history to get repeat customers. You really can fool some of the people all of the time. They are still stocking up on his stuff and for the time being nobody has actually opened the bottles they bought earlier. On Channel 4 the egregious Mark Francois says leaving without a deal is fine although he would prefer a free trade agreement which he says can be negotiated by October 31st (this year). Presumably this is based on the withdrawal negotiations going so well?
The new PM won't be in place until the end of July and he will have three months to do what the experts think will take at least five years and probably more. FTAs are notoriously difficult, even between nations that are converging standards. We will be attempting the opposite. Another minor problem is that the new EU commission won't be in place until early November.
I have also heard him saying the EU have already offered us a Canada style FTA in March last year. Again this simply isn't true as I explained (HERE). Three years at the epicentre of the Brexit maelstrom and he has learned nothing. Apart from anything else we haven't prepared for a trade negotiation or set a mandate. Perhaps he still believes lord Lilley's claim that we could do it in 'ten minutes'.
John Crace in The Guardian has also noted the main flaw in The Brexit party's offer (HERE). Farage is demanding a seat at the 'negotiating' table while his policy is to go for a 'clean' Brexit otherwise known as leaving without a deal. What is actually to be be negotiated?
Farage only had one policy but he hasn't actually thought that through.
Flush with success, he is talking about fielding 650 candidates in a general election and producing a full manifesto. Let's hope the candidates don't expect to have a hand in writing it. It will presumably be the thoughts of Chairman Nigel. Gary Gibbon at Channel 4 discovered that like Mao Tse Tung Farage cannot be deposed:
Gary Gibbon - Can you be deposed as leader in this party?— Haggis_UK #FBPE 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 (@Haggis_UK) May 27, 2019
Nigel Farage - No
Gary Gibbon - There are scary words for parties like that.#C4News #PeoplesVote #EuropeanElectionResults pic.twitter.com/gIklKFAYBv
In the European elections, the Brexit party used the same method as the leave campaign: employ a lot of social media and don't specify what your objectives are, just keep it to a slogan or two and you'll attract people who have very different ideas but think they are all on the same wavelength. It's not until you've got the votes in the bag that you reveal anything specific but by then it's too late. Mad isn't it? But so successful.
The BBC covered the election aftermath in their usual style, by visiting somewhere in the national hinterland and speaking to ordinary people with extraordinary ignorance of all things Brexit. On a visit to Stratford they spoke to voters who wanted it to be 'delivered' as though they had ordered something from Interflora or Amazon whilst blindfolded. Nobody knew what Brexit is - one woman actually admitted so on camera - but nonetheless they are absolutely desperate to get it - or think they are. After all they voted for it!
There was an excellent analysis by the BBC's Chris Morris (HERE) about what a Brexit Party's Brexit would look like - purely hypothetical since Farage is never going to get anywhere near power, not least because he doesn't actually want it. Demolition contractors don't bid for building work do they? Morris says:
"It is notable that Mr Farage tended to avoid the term 'no-deal' Brexit during the election campaign. A party spokesman argued that it is a misleading term that gives a false impression.
"Without a withdrawal agreement, though, most of the vast network of rules and regulations that have governed the UK's relationship with the rest of Europe for more than 40 years, whether in trade or security or other issues, would disappear overnight.
"That's what a clean break would mean".
"It is notable that Mr Farage tended to avoid the term 'no-deal' Brexit during the election campaign. A party spokesman argued that it is a misleading term that gives a false impression.
"Without a withdrawal agreement, though, most of the vast network of rules and regulations that have governed the UK's relationship with the rest of Europe for more than 40 years, whether in trade or security or other issues, would disappear overnight.
"That's what a clean break would mean".
We do not learn which spokesman said the no-deal term was 'misleading' and gave a 'false impression' but it must be a comedian, someone with a real sense of humour or an alien who has been on another planet until last week.
The entirety of Brexit IS misleading and a false impression - or it's nothing. This is how we have come to be where we are.
POLLING
On Monday, talking about the European election result, which showed 35% clearly for leave and 40% clearly for remain, I said if we ever went for a deal/no deal referendum it would depend on how the 23/24% of voters for Labour and the Tories actually broke.
Peter Kellner of YouGov supplies the answer based on a Survation poll on the 22nd May (HERE).
He says it shows the 9% of Tories who stayed loyal would split 50/50 while the 14% who voted Labour would divide 3:1 for remain. This means, according to Kellner, that if you thought of the European election as a massive opinion poll the actual result would be:
55% REMAIN
43% LEAVE
This should put some real wind in our sails!!
Business Insider (HERE) gets to a similar result albeit by lumping all Labour votes as remain and all conservative votes as leave. Flawed analysis but accidentally giving the right answer.
