The Tory leadership contest is about to get started proper next week, May having formally resigned as party leader yesterday. I'm convinced we are embarking on a period after which the membership will look back fondly on the last three years. The disparate parade of no-hopers, liars, chancers and swivel-eyed nutters pitching to become leader are linked by one thing. To a man and woman they are delusional. I checked the medical definition:
"A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes the inconvertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary."
See what I mean?
This morning, Michael Gove has told The Daily Mail he took cocaine '20 years ago' on several occasions. He thus joins Hunt and Rory Stewart as self-confessed druggies. It would explain a lot if they all admitted to being spaced out most of the time even today. I assume somebody was threatening to reveal Gove's habits, or one of them anyway, so he has had to spike the story himself.
But delusional they are, assuming of course they believe the stuff coming out of their own mouths. To some extent or other, they are all promising things they cannot or will not deliver.
Firsr of all, Leadsom has an article at Brexit Central setting out her 'three point plan' (where would we be without at least one multi-point plan I ask myself) to resolve Brexit. She proposes a citizen's rights bill, planning for no deal plus 'alternative arrangements' for the Irish border and a tour of EU capitals in the David Davis style to persuade them about a 'wide range of measures' we are putting in place. Her three years in cabinet have clearly been a total waste of time.
Not to be outdone, Hancock does the same with just a sprinkling of realism. He accepts that no deal will never get past Bercow or parliament so the WA will have to be ratified and he is therefore seeking 'a much more ambitious Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement' - good luck with persuading the ERG and the membership with that
He also makes the most extraordinary claim, saying a general elections would mean, "Corbyn by Christmas, a second referendum and no Brexit at all". What? No Brexit - even if that's what the people want?
Crikey, if the people had a vote they might not vote for the Brexit we're giving them! Good grief! We can't have that! It might look as if we're not delivering the will of the people. Better not ask.
Steve Baker, he of the ERG, has published a 10 page 'plan' to get us out of the EU by Halloween. It has been totally ridiculed by people who actually know what they're talking about, unlike Baker. This Twitter thread from Peter Foster, the Telegraph's Europe editor, is a good one:
So @SteveBakerHW has produced a 10-page 'no deal' manifesto - here's my report with analysis from @jdportes @SamuelMarcLowe @DavidHenigUK @MichaelAodhan— Peter Foster (@pmdfoster) June 5, 2019
The plan is completely ludicrous - as others have attested - so what's the game? 1/threadhttps://t.co/rX6kcJsQVa
A poll of voters in 48 marginal seats who were Brexit Party or UKIP supporters finds Boris is most likely to cause them to switch back to the Tories according to The Telegraph, although it doesn't tell us how many Conservative voters would switch to the LibDems if he became PM.
You cannot beat a charlatan with a knave or a demagogue with another demagogue. And you cannot defeat someone who is cavalier with the truth by employing your own liar, although the Tories are determined to try.
Professor Chris Grey has an excellent blog post about all of this HERE. As he puts it:
"And this has been, and will continue to be, the repeated pattern: Brexiters making obviously false or at least highly questionable claims and promises, each of which is warned about at the time but the warnings are ignored or derided.
"When the warnings come true, the false and questionable claims are forgotten, or the consequences are said to be nothing to do with Brexit and are just a ‘coincidence’. And a new set of claims, promises - and fresh warnings - are made, or the old ones repackaged.
"So we are building lies upon lies in a vertiginous spiral which each week takes us further away from anything which bears any resemblance whatsoever to reality. The first casualty of war, as the saying has it, is truth".
"When the warnings come true, the false and questionable claims are forgotten, or the consequences are said to be nothing to do with Brexit and are just a ‘coincidence’. And a new set of claims, promises - and fresh warnings - are made, or the old ones repackaged.
"So we are building lies upon lies in a vertiginous spiral which each week takes us further away from anything which bears any resemblance whatsoever to reality. The first casualty of war, as the saying has it, is truth".
The shocking thing is that three years after the referendum we are still in the realms of delusion and wishful thinking. The long confrontation with the reality of Brexit has still not penetrated.
While the leadership Wannabees are squabbling about which fantasy to offer the membership in exchange for their vote, Barnier is like the orderly in a secure institution constantly trying to bring a bunch of patients suffering a collective psychotic episode back at least to within sight of reality.
He reminds the candidates that whichever one is chosen, they will still have to resolve the Irish border problem and as he says, if we want an orderly Brexit the ONLY way is via the Withdrawal Agreement. The ONLY alternative is a disorderly Brexit.
The new PM is either going to have to sell no deal and put the nation on something like a war footing as some barely credible alternative to membership of the richest trading bloc in the world OR persuade the Tory party and the 17 million leave voters to accept the WA. Or revoke Article 50. The first option would make the last ten years of austerity seem like paradise while either of the latter two look like the twelve labours of Hercules rolled into one. Even BoJo with his silver tongue might struggle.
Do not forget, it's not as if the consequences of the policy will take years or decades to materialise. Politicians can get away with a lot IF they can put a lot of time and distance between their decisions and the disastrous result. The next PM will have a few weeks at most and even as little as few days.
The EU will be in a very strong position, stronger even than they had with Theresa May. Would a prime minister, weeks into their premiership risk everything on a thousand to one shot? Gambling the nation's security, prosperity and social cohesion on a no deal Brexit when every piece of official advice on the desk tells him it will be catastrophic? Come on!.
He reminds the candidates that whichever one is chosen, they will still have to resolve the Irish border problem and as he says, if we want an orderly Brexit the ONLY way is via the Withdrawal Agreement. The ONLY alternative is a disorderly Brexit.
The new PM is either going to have to sell no deal and put the nation on something like a war footing as some barely credible alternative to membership of the richest trading bloc in the world OR persuade the Tory party and the 17 million leave voters to accept the WA. Or revoke Article 50. The first option would make the last ten years of austerity seem like paradise while either of the latter two look like the twelve labours of Hercules rolled into one. Even BoJo with his silver tongue might struggle.
Do not forget, it's not as if the consequences of the policy will take years or decades to materialise. Politicians can get away with a lot IF they can put a lot of time and distance between their decisions and the disastrous result. The next PM will have a few weeks at most and even as little as few days.
The EU will be in a very strong position, stronger even than they had with Theresa May. Would a prime minister, weeks into their premiership risk everything on a thousand to one shot? Gambling the nation's security, prosperity and social cohesion on a no deal Brexit when every piece of official advice on the desk tells him it will be catastrophic? Come on!.
Brussels would take a particular pleasure if that PM was Boris Alexander de Pfeffel Johnson. He is hated in Brussels.
A bit of Kipling to finish, something BoJo should heed:
A bit of Kipling to finish, something BoJo should heed:
A DEAD STATESMAN
I could not dig: I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
from EPITAPHS OF THE WAR 1914-18
