The Tories seem to have a death wish and are probably going to have it granted. First they inflicted Brexit on us and now Boris Johnson it seems. He took a step closer to Downing Street yesterday when Rory Stewart, the only one with a grip on reality, was voted out of the contest. They will get everything they deserve. It is the start of a slow decline to irrelevance.
The leadership contest will be whittled down to the final pair later today with two more rounds of voting. Johnson is obviously going to be joined by either Hunt or Gove who are separated by just three votes. Stewart's 27 votes and then Javid's 38 will be redistributed, so all to play for. There are rumours of gerrymandering by BoJo's camp to 'lend' Sajid Javid or Jeremy Hunt some votes to make sure Gove is not in the final. Johnson and Gove are not close friends and I imagine both of them will be making every effort to damage the other.
If Johnson becomes PM it will probably be the shortest lived and most humiliating premiership since Anthony Eden and the fiasco in Egypt. Just as Suez exposed our much reduced global standing in the 1950s, Brexit and Bojo will do the same in the 21st century, taking us further along the road to international irrelevance. The only difference is that we will leave the stage with the world laughing openly at us this time instead of sniggering behind a hand.
This is a party that has won one small majority in 27 years and six general elections, embarking on the most divisive, contentious and far-reaching constitutional reform for centuries with a minority government, a new untried leader and a hung parliament. We are also negotiating to withdraw from a vastly larger, better prepared and more cohesive bloc of 27 countries to try and get a better deal than we had when we were a member.
All the talk of going to Brussels to renegotiate the WA is hot air. Brussels will not reopen the talks, and May's deal - even if some slightly modified offer is on the table - is not likely to be popular with the electorate, the overwhelming majority of which think it's a bad deal. Trying to sell that will not be easy.
We were promised caviar and champagne and are now offered a choice of thin gruel or grass.
Do the Tories have a bright future? Almost certainly not.
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| Boris on the front page again - 2016 |
Bill Jamieson in The Scotsman (HERE) sets out one quite feasible scenario where Johnson is out by Christmas and the nation 'broken on the wheel of Europe'.
Let us all hope and pray that Nigel Adams' role as acolyte and car-door-opener-in-chief in the ensuing disaster does not go unrecognised. Incidentally, Nigel got a mention on the BBC on Tuesday (HERE) about his recent work at The Welsh Office:
Councillor Dyfrig Siencyn, chair of the North Wales Economic Ambition Board, speaking to the House of Commons' Welsh Affairs Committee on Monday at Bangor University, said:
"Every time we have a change of minister there is some new obstacle that we are greeted with.'We
had Mims Davies and we thought we've got to a very positive place and
we thought that we were making progress. Then Nigel Adams - his
appointment, to me, my perception was that it set us back' ".
Continuing his great work at Westminster, setting Wales back, Adams is about to do the same for the whole country by playing a bit-part in seeing BoJo enter Downing Street.
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This Sunday will mark a significant event. It will be the start of the fourth year after the 2016 referendum. Americans get the chance to elect a new president every four years presumably on the basis that things might have changed sufficiently to need to test public opinion again. The prospects of leaving the EU on October 31st is vanishingly small, perhaps zero, so we will be well into 2020 before we are even technically out - all on the basis of a vote almost four years before. If we leave with a deal, a transition period will follow when things will remain exactly as they are, again for years.
Yet there is at the moment no intention to test public opinion to check the electorate is still of the same mind as it was in 2016.
We need a People's Vote - and we will get one.
Yet there is at the moment no intention to test public opinion to check the electorate is still of the same mind as it was in 2016.
We need a People's Vote - and we will get one.
