I assume he or his staff have been door knocking for the coming local elections on 5 May. This is what they're finding:
“But the vast majority of the expressed opinion in my constituency of Wycombe is fury. People lived under barbaric rules. They were told that if they deviated one iota from the law they would kill people. And they suffered for it. Meanwhile in Number 10, where they should have been obeying both the letter and spirit of the rules, clearly they breached both. It’s been a disaster and I fear we will reap the whirlwind on polling day."
The article says even his critics find it difficult to question "the vigour with which [Baker] pursues his goals. He’s been labelled the ‘Brexit hardman’ and ‘Rebel Commander’. Baker says he doesn’t like these nicknames, though he brings them up over the course of our conversation." Johnson should perhaps be worried about his single-mindedness.
However, it's not so much his messianic commitment and desperate effort to get re-elected as his comments about Brexit which comes much further down the piece. It is reported that he voted Liberal Democrat in his first general election and only became a Eurosceptic after the 2007 Lisbon Treaty, something he describes as a “mortal sin”.
As a Christian, he apparently has "no issues with shared sovereignty and as a classical liberal, he’s all in favour of free movement of goods and people. For him, Brexit is first and foremost a question of democratic accountability."
Baker says, and here we see the first inkling of the penny dropping:
“I always understood that there would be downsides and difficulties to leaving the EU. Much as I hate customs paperwork, much as I hate having to have rows about SPS [sanitary and phytosanitary] measures [on food imports] in Northern Ireland and all the rest of it, those rows are worth having in order to maintain the principle that the public get the government they vote for.”
He voted against May’s Brexit deal on three occasions and now says, “I am filled with regret and lament that our country has ended up so bruised and divided. I didn’t like either [referendum] campaign very much. I particularly didn’t like the [Leave] bus [emblazoned with the promise to spend the £350m ‘sent to Brussels’ each week on the NHS] and I said so during the campaign, which was controversial. People seem to have forgotten that.”
He claims to be a Christian but was quite happy to ride on the back of a lie to get Brexit done. He was happy to force Theresa may out but now regrets the country is so divided, he hates customs paperwork and rows about SPS checks. Well, well, well.
The downsides and difficulties were 'understood' at the time - but he kept quiet about them.
Mr Baker is shortly going to find out what "democratic accountability" means in practice.
His article was tweeted approvingly by Lord Frost:
As so often @SteveBakerHW puts it perfectly in his interview with the @Telegraph this evening.Brexit is about democracy and accountability - for *all* of the UK. pic.twitter.com/341km9UAbL— David Frost (@DavidGHFrost) April 22, 2022
This follows Rees-Mogg's appearance before the European Scrutiny Committee this week where he apparently told MPs once again that the benefits of Brexit would be seen in 50-100 years. Isn't it great to have that sort of faith? He didn't explain how he personally would be held to account if there were no benefits by 2066 (say) when he'll be 97 years old. I presume he will tell voters to hang on for another 50 years.
This all sums up the sheer dishonesty behind Brexit and the constantly shifting arguments that its supporters make. I follow professor Chris Grey and read his regular Friday blog posts which are always excellent. A few weeks ago he mentioned that it was the dishonesty that first got him hooked on Brexit in late 2016, before that he hadn't taken much notice of EU affairs.
It occurred to me that that was also the main driver for me. I hate dishonesty.
Had Johnson, Gove, Baker, Rees-Mogg, Davis, Jones, Cummings and all the others who claimed there would be 'no downsides' to Brexit and anyone who suggested otherwise was 'scaremongering,' had been honest and said in 2016 we're doing it just for 'democratic accountability' and there will be a loss of trade, fewer jobs, less tax revenue, more paperwork, less influence and less security in a more uncertain world - but it will be worth it in 50-100 years, I would have no complaints had they won.
But they didn't do that, did they? Because they wouldn't have won if they had. The campaign was full of lies, from start to finish because it had to be. And this is why there are deep divisions in Britain. It is not the division Steve Baker thinks it is, between leave and remain or rejoin, but one between those who know we've were duped and those yet to realise it.
And it also neatly brings me to the current crisis in No 10, at the heart of which is the same issue, honesty. Supporters of Johnson say partygate is fluff or the equivalent of a parking fine, a small transgression of the lockdown rules. No, it is not. It's about those who govern us being subject to the same laws and above all, it's about basic honesty and decency.
Considering Johnson's personal record of dishonesty going back thirty years or more and the level of lies he has told (£350 million a week for the NHS, no border in the Irish sea, etc) the idea he could ever be straight about parties in Downing Street is laughable.
When he stood at the dispatch box on 8 December last year and said there were no parties and all guidance was followed at all times in No 10, it was all lies but to him so utterly trivial by comparison to a life of untruths he probably didn't think about it for a second. It wouldn't have occurred to him.
Most people (and I include myself) couldn't get through life, keep a job or friends if you were totally honest at all times. It just isn't possible. But most people are well aware of telling fibs, an alarm goes off inside your head to warn you that you are about to be dishonest. This is usually something trivial (What do you think of this idea?) and which isn't going to come back and haunt you.
Most people (I think and hope) are honest when filling out an official form and worry about getting something wrong. Johnson is different. His lies are so monumental and delivered with such conviction and confidence but without evidence or the slightest concern that they might one day be exposed. If they are, more and even bigger lies are used to cover them up, This is the pattern of his entire life and truth and lies are now so mixed up he can't tell the difference.
This is why he has to go and why Brexit will be reversed one day.
