Fraser Nelson, editor of the right wing Spectator magazine wrote an article the other day for The Telegraph (HERE) in which he argues the Tories can only survive now if they become the party of no deal, indeed that was the title of the piece itself. It was a recognition that Farage is still a vacuum cleaner for the extreme right in this country. Nelson has also convinced himself and is now trying to convince others that leaving without a deal would be OK. He would perhaps be better writing this for The Guardian since most Telegraph readers already think no deal is fine anyway.
However, The Guardian probably wouldn't allow him to peddle that much rubbish in their pages.
The Conservatives once tried to outflank UKIP and Farage by conceding a referendum to finally put the European question to rest after thirty years of skirmishing. That went disastrously wrong didn't it? UKIP barely had a single MP at the time, just a couple of disaffected Tories in Carswell and the remarkably aptly name Mark Reckless. Now Farage has a new party and is just as likely to finish up with no MPs in the House after the next election. But Nelson is proposing what amounts to a reverse takeover where the Tories adopt The Brexit party's single issue policy of leaving the EU without a deal.
The Tories and Farage keep trying to leapfrog each other by pandering to more and more of the right-wing.
This might seem like clever and even obvious politics but to me it's tantamount to being in the car with a suicidal driver and, fearing the worst, grabbing the wheel only to steer us deliberately over a cliff yourself. It's ridiculous.
Of course, he has a point when you look at the latest polling, which I confess I find hard to understand. According to Opinium (HERE), Farage's Brexit party, formed in January, has a huge lead in the European elections, and could get more votes than the Tories and Labour combined! But you cannot out-Farage Farage by appealing to the ever more extreme. That way lies disaster for the Tories and this country.
Nelson's article is 1066 words long. An iconic number if ever there was one. The odd thing is that it does not include the words 'Irish', 'border' or 'backstop'. Amazing since this is the biggest obstacle to a no deal Brexit.
Fraser doesn't bother to mention the Good Friday Agreement either or the fact that parliament will never countenance a no-deal Brexit or that senior Tories would jump ship immediately if this ever became official policy. It is just never going to happen and I'm surprised he even thinks it's a possibility.
Mr Nelson is a cheerleader for Brexit and this is how they work. Keep pushing the same unrealistic, impractical, unworkable proposals without mentioning any of the things that make them so. Ignore the international treaties we've solemnly signed, the chaos and painful side effects from which most of us would suffer.
Just keep hunting unicorns.
