GETTING 'MATCH FIT' FOR NO DEAL IS JUST MORE BLUFF

There is to be a last ditch attempt today or tomorrow to block a no deal Brexit by amending a Northern Ireland Bill to ensure the House has to sit in October. This would prevent Boris Johnson from proroguing parliament before the October 31st deadline. We shall have to see what happens but I don't think it will be the last effort and I don't think it's really necessary anyway. He isn't going to do it.

FARAGE - The British crisis in human form is taking us all for fools - again

In May 2016 Nigel Farage during an interview with Kevin McGuire from The Daily Mirror (HERE), said that if the result was close it would be unfinished business. These are his exact words "In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way. If the remain campaign win two-thirds to one-third that ends it."  As we know the result was actually even closer than that, it was 51.9% to 48.1%. I always assumed that had our side won, Nigel would have set out on the campaign trail the very next day. 

FARAGE - A 'BRITISH CRISIS IN HUMAN FORM'

The imbecile Trump arrives today for his three day state visit having already barged into the Brexit fiasco by telling us we should leave with no deal unless we get a good one and that Nigel Farage should be in our negotiating team.  He is also backing Boris to be PM.  If Robert Mueller needed more evidence Trump is nothing more than Putin's glove puppet, here it is. It's risible to think Farage could add anything to anything. His style would be to refuse to attend any meetings and simply keep bellowing how awful the EU is. 

FARAGE - THE VOICE OF MODERATION. REALLY?

You begin to get a sense of the rising panic in pro-Brexit ranks. I think there is a widespread acceptance that the deal is not going to be ratified by this parliament and the new PM, for all the bluster, is not going to get the EU to renegotiate the Withdrawal Agreement. Against this backdrop, David Scullion, deputy editor at Brexit Central (HERE) writes that a no deal Brexit is the only way to 'save the Conservative party'

DR FARAGE'S SNAKE OIL STILL GOING WELL

Sales of Dr Farage's patent snake oil are still going well. He and the other Brexiteers must be surprised. They are the first snake oil salesmen in history to get repeat customers. You really can fool some of the people all of the time. They are still stocking up on his stuff and for the time being nobody has actually opened the bottles they bought earlier. On Channel 4 the egregious Mark Francois says leaving without a deal is fine although he would prefer a free trade agreement which he says can be negotiated by October 31st (this year). Presumably this is based on the withdrawal negotiations going so well?

FARAGE

Farage is a cocky little git, isn't he. He will probably do well in next week's European elections with his Brexit Party - formed in January and four months later leading the polls ahead of both the Conservatives and Labour. It's amazing what you can do with no manifesto, just a bit of concentrated chutzpah and a few million pounds.  I really don't know what voters see in him, he is a simple breaker of things.

NIGEL 'BREAKER' FARAGE - THE SHATTERER OF THINGS

Nigel Farage has an article in The Telegraph today (HERE), verbally dragging his kango hammer across the political scene and claiming the people want to 'break' the two party system. The demolition man, fresh from smashing both the Conservative party and UKIP,  now wants to set about Labour as well. Brexit is going to break the British economy and the United Kingdom. Society is dividing into leavers and remainers. Families and friendships have been broken. The EU has been damaged but is at present intact, no thanks to Farage, although I assume if elected he will join the right wing group in the EU parliament comprising Matteo Salvini's Lega Nord party in Italy and Marine Le Pen's National Rally party in France. They will then try to destroy the EU.

BREXIT AND THE DISAPPEARING CENTRE

These are politically disturbing times. Bismarck is supposed to have once described politics as the art of the possible, but now in this country, with Brexit, politics has become the art of the impossible. For my whole life we have enjoyed relative stability with the two main parties occupying positions close to the centre ground of British political thinking. Brexit has changed all that. We are now seeing the extremes chase an illusion.

THE BREXIT PARTY - NOT OVER YET, JUST ON HOLIDAY

David Cameron once called UKIP, Farage's former party, a bunch of "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists". It's now headed up by Gerard Batten with Tommy Robinson as his advisor and has become too 'extreme' even for Nigel Farage himself. However, to help voters who want a real Monster Raving Loony Party but without having to admit to voting for one, Nigel has launched The Brexit Party (HERE). This has multi-millionaire Richard Tice as chairman. Think of Screaming Lord Sutch in a pin striped suit but without the sophistication or intellect.

FARAGE AND THE POLITICS OF DIVISION

Farage has set up a new political entity, The Brexit Party (HERE), which should be good news for Labour. Anything which divides the right must be good news for the left. But this is a Farage speciality isn't it. If he was the only member of the party it would still have division, argument, acrimony and infighting. Political parties are usually created to get things done, Farage's are always in the business of destroying things aren't they? If it isn't the EU, it's the Tories and now UKIP.

TRUMP INVESTIGATION - IS FARAGE BECOMING IMPLICATED?

Special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign is getting closer and closer to Trump. Yesterday saw the arrest of Roger Stone, a long time associate of Donald Trump and in the indictment (HERE) there is clear evidence he lied to the House Intelligence Committee on several occasions about contacts he made through others with Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. What has this got to do with Brexit? Well there is an intriguing reference to a "supporter of the Trump campaign" who lived in the UK.

TWO STUPID MEN

IATA - the International Air Transport Association - have published a 91 page report (HERE) on the impact of Brexit on airlines flying in an out of the UK. The Guardian report on it HERE and say under a no deal scenario flights between the UK and Spain will be cut by 95%. However, I'm not that concerned about the actual report itself, troubling though it is, because it's only one of hundreds and hundreds of different "reports" or "studies" or "papers" prepared by governments, industry or lobby groups all desperately worried about Brexit.

FARAGE AND CETA

The weak minded reporters on The Daily Express (see HERE) are reporting on Farage addressing his rally in Bolton to stop the Brexit "betrayal" and describing how he "BRILLIANTLY" outlined how Mrs May should negotiate with the EU. His BRILLIANT idea is to go for a Canadian style FTA like CETA (HERE). He is quoted: "We will leave all the political parts of the European project but we offer you in return a Canada-style trade deal where we buy and sell goods from each other without tariffs, without us paying money, without free movement of people, without jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice". Amazingly he seems to think WE should offer THEM something they offered us last December, nine long months ago.

FARAGE AN EMBARRASSMENT AND A FOOL

Farage has been an MEP since 1999 but his time in Brussels has taught him nothing about the EU. During his phone in show on LBC, according to this account (HERE) in the Sunday Express, he "poked huge holes" in Airbus' so-called scaremongering. This is laughable. He didn't poke any holes in their warnings about a no deal Brexit, he simply demonstrated his own ignorance and lack of understanding why his life's work could now inflict fatal damage on Britain's aerospace industry. 

POLLING LATEST AND A 2nd REFERENDUM?

WhatUKthinks has added a new poll (HERE), No 52 in the series: In hindsight do you think the decision to leave the EU was right or wrong? It shows a 4% lead for WRONG and marks the 9th straight poll where WRONG had a clear lead, and the 13th since RIGHT was ahead. This is a complete reversal of the first polls, which started in August 2016.

TRUMP, BREXIT AND FARAGE

At the end of 2016, after the US presidential election, we heard a lot about Trump and Brexit being linked by a sort of collective anger and frustration expressed at the establishment. Nigel Farage said they were the start of a global revolution and made a lot of his own personal connection to Trump. Now the new book by Michael Wolff, released today in America (HERE) but widely trailed in the past few days reveals what we all knew. Trump is just an idiot, a moron and a fool - that is according to those who had to deal with him.

THE SILENCE OF FARAGE

The popularity of US president Donald Trump, already at record lows for this stage of a presidency, continues to fall. According to reports (HERE) he is said to be isolated and beleaguered. The latest crisis is the unexpected resignation of his communications director. What is notable is the growing silence on the part of Nigel Farage. Having lent his weight to Trump's campaign it would be extraordinary if he wasn't a little nervous at the prospect of impeachment proceedings against the man who he cheered to the rafters.