I confess to having bought The Telegraph every Saturday for years, not because I agree with their political stance but because the sections on motoring, property and money are first class. Politically they have always been on the right but now they are starting to rub shoulders with Atilla the Hun. Reading the letters page is to stand behind a two-way mirror in a mental institution watching particularly disturbed inmates, wild eyed and dribbling, shouting at themselves about one imagined problem or another.
Of course many newspapers have readers with extreme views, but at 111 Buckingham Palace Road SW1, they are also on the editorial floor or writing opinion columns and helping to reinforce each others warped beliefs.
Charles Moore is in this group. He is one of the few men who could outfarage Farage on the EU and sometimes makes Nigel seem like Jacque Delors. He was once the editor of The Telegraph and also the official hagiographer of Margaret Thatcher
This week he writes about the Irish issue (HERE). He slates Mrs May mercilessly for flying to Brussels in the small hours last December, "on Barnier's orders" to sign the Joint Report with the backstop solution. He says she flew into a "trap".
"By seizing the intiative, the Commission cleverly deflection attention. The need for more border activity after Brexit comes not from any demands by the UK, or the Republic, but from the EU". He actually believes this stuff and thinks the EU only wants to "enforce its endless rules". You would think this came from an anarchist rather than somebody who urged Brexit so we could take back control of our own borders and enforce our own endless rules.
To Moore it's all the fault of officials (remainers all in Mooreworld) who "refuse to admit that, thanks to the British people, the historical train is now travelling in a different direction [i.e backwards]. We are no longer committed to Europe but they still are. So, their failure in the negotiations is deliberate. It is they who will have to change".
I am afraid it is Moore who will have to change. He is living in the 1900s when we were a maritime power. He hasn't come to terms with the last century and our new found status as an ordinary mid-ranking European nation. We are witnessing RealPolitik being played out, negotiating our way out of the world's largest trading bloc as the weaker side. This is how it works and how it will work after Brexit. The Telegraph's tweet of the article received short shrift:
Claptrap.— Ben Davies (@ben_benjamin3) 6 October 2018
The northern Ireland border issue was settled after 30 years of murder and mayhem. Then a bunch of city boys who don't know or don't care about history decided to wreck it in order to make even more money.
And they somehow see themselves as patriots.
Despicable.
I assume he also wrote the main editorial, or at least it was written by a like-minded person who claims, "[The EU are] probably not that bothered about the future of Ireland either - one member out of 27 - a country that sells £21.8 billion in goods to the UK and would win big in a deal whose terms suit the entire British Isles and maintain stability in the province".
Makes you ashamed to be British doesn't it. We still think we can do what we like in Ireland after all the history between our two countries and with no concept of the ideals and solidarity between European nations inside the EU.
This is an extract from the 1993 Downing Street declaration (HERE):
"On this basis, he [John Major, UK prime minister] reiterates, on the behalf of the British Government, that they have no selfish strategic or economic interest in Northern Ireland. Their primary interest is to see peace, stability and reconciliation established by agreement among all the people inhabit the island, and they will work together with the Irish Government to achieve such an agreement, which will embrace the totality of relationships. The role of the British Government will be to encourage, facilitate and enable the achievement of such agreement over a period through a process of dialogue and co-operation based on full respect for the rights and identities of both traditions in Ireland".
To men like Moore these agreements are made only for the moment, to achieve an immediate objective and no more. How does having no selfish or strategic interest in NI now sit with wanting a deal whose terms would suit the entire British Isles (which includes The Republic)? It looks like we want to impose a solution on Ireland. How much more selfish can you get?
