CUMMINGS - TOO MUCH DEMOCRACY IS DANGEROUS

Reuters are running an item (HERE) setting out various scenarios for the way Brexit will play out. It's a reasonable stab, looking over what seem like plausible options although none have happy endings, except the last one, Brexit being reversed. It contains an arrogant quote from Dominic Cummings, the campaign director of Vote Leave.

CUMMINGS - WHO NEEDS A PLAN?

Nick Cohen is (unlike me) a gifted writer, always worth reading particularly on Brexit (but also on other topics too) and his latest effort (HERE) on the Spectator blog is no exception. He takes issue with a number of commentators who argue it's hypocrisy of remainers to accept the Irish referendum on abortion while campaigning to overturn Brexit. Charles Moore at The Telegraph was doing so at the weekend. Cohen debunks all that very effectively but he provides a link to a blog post by Dominic Cummings, Director of the Vote Leave campaign, (HERE) from June 2015 which I found absolutely astonishing. 

THE CUMMINGS TRAIN WRECK

Dominic Cummings, the egregious campaign director for Vote Leave, has written an open letter to Conservative MPs on his blog (HERE) telling them Brexit is a "train wreck". Of course, this isn't news to the sixteen million who voted to remain but it might be to many leavers. However, a mea culpa it isn't. It is a self justifying rant by the man perhaps even more responsible for Brexit than Nigel Farage. He blames just about everybody for the debacle except himself.

PSYCHOGRAPHIC TARGETTING

If you are like me, still unable to really figure out how the referendum was won when the result is likely to be totally against the interests of those who voted in large numbers for it, then the truth is beginning to emerge. The DCMS Select committee, in their investigation into fake news, is slowly uncovering how the Brexit campaign went about it.

BREXITEERS BEGIN THE BLAME GAME

What an amazing day it was yesterday. Brexiteers seem to be falling over each other to lay the blame for what one can only surmise is the growing realisation on their part that Brexit is an absolute disaster and they are powerless to stop it. Having set in train a huge national humiliation they are now looking desperately for scapegoats.

RICHARD NORTH

Richard A E North is a blogger, but a knowledgeable one and highly respected. He was a local government officer and has a PhD in public sector food surveillance. He worked as a research director at the European parliament, once sharing an office with a Mr N Farage. In 2004 he was a UKIP candidate in the European elections so clearly he is euro sceptic, but his blog is unremittingly critical of the government. There is a link to his blog (EUreferendum) on the side bar under My Blog List.

BREXITEERS BEGINNING TO CIRCLE THE WAGONS

Dominic Cummings, the slippery campaign director for Vote Leave has once again attacked the government over their Brexit planning (HERE) describing the triggering of Article 50 as a “historic, unforgivable blunder” and saying their approach is a "shambles". Well at least he's right about that. His main criticism is that we invoked Article 50 before we were ready and before we had a plan.

BREXIT CHAOS BEGINS

The leaking of draft immigration plans (HERE) seems to have signalled the start of a new phase in the Brexit saga. We forget that a lot of people in the civil service are opposed to Brexit so keeping stuff secret is not going to be easy. And if anyone thought the end of the third negotiating round got a bit fractious then they ain't seen nuthin' yet! It looks like things are only going to get worse. For a Brexit watcher like me the next few months will be very entertaining. 

DOMINIC CUMMINGS - AGAIN - & THE REPEAL BILL

Mr Cummings has again take to twitter to attack the government's approach to the Repeal Bill and David Davis in particular (HERE). He is exercised by clause 9 of the Repeal Bill which he believes gives Henry VIII powers for the government to "ditch almost entire bill via agreement with EU". I don't know if this is true or not but clause 9 of the Repeal Bill (HERE) says this:

EURATOM

Dominic Cummings who appears regularly in this blog and was the so-called mastermind behind Brexit (an oxymoron if ever there was one) has entered the fray about Euratom (HERE). He says those in government who favour leaving Europe's nuclear regulatory body are "morons". He does not seem to have been told it was not the government's idea but an unforeseen corollary of leaving the EU - as determined by the EU.

DOMINIC CUMMINGS

I have written several posts about Dominic Cummings (HERE) the so called mastermind of Brexit, but this latest one is a bit of a shocker. In answer to a tweeted question from a Financial Times journalist he apparently concedes the Brexit vote may be an error. This was the exchange yesterday (HERE):

Q: (David Allen Green) Is there anything which could now happen (or not happen) which would make you now wish Leave had not won the referendum result?

A: (Dominic Cummings): Lots! I said before REF was dumb idea, other things shdve been tried 1st. In some possible branches of the future leaving will be an error

SHIFTY LIARS

Matthew Elliot will not be well known to many people in this country. He was Chief Executive of the Vote Leave campaign and even before it started he produced a one thousand page tome (HERE) setting out the problems of the EU as he saw them and the possible options if Brexit was a success. Before the referendum he gave evidence before the Treasury Select Committee where Andrew Tyrie gave him a bit of a dressing down (HERE) for refusing on three or four occasions to appear before MPs, something he said no one had ever done before. Such was the arrogance of Mr Elliot.

DOMINIC CUMMINGS

Dominic Cummings, the so-called "mastermind" behind Brexit, if that isn't a contradiction in terms, has co-written a book called How to lose a referendum, in which he describes Eurosceptic Conservative MPs as "particularly unbalanced" (HERE). Anyone who has read any of Mr Cummings' other work or watched his performance in front of The Treasury Select Committee (HERE) where he ably demonstrates his own ignorance and stupidity will think this is a kettle calling the pot black.

DEXEU IN DISARRAY

You sense victory is on the way when your opponents begin to fall into disarray. The election result on June 8th cheered me up no end but it seems this was just the start. It appears all is not well at DEXEU, the department headed by David Davis. I first noticed this on 13th June when The Spectator carried a report of Lord Bridges resigning (HERE). He was one of the four junior ministers working under Davis.

DOMINIC CUMMINGS

Dominic Cummings was part of the backroom staff from the Vote Leave campaign. He is one of the slippery individuals behind the £350 million a week for the NHS claim. A website called The London Economics (HERE) is suggesting Mr Cummings, in an article on Spectator Blogs (HERE) from January 2017, has actually admitted it was lies like the £350 million that won it. I am not sure he is quite so open about it as London Economics imply but he comes very close to saying without the lies they would have lost.