Brexit is dead – strangled at the weekend by Prime Minister Theresa May and her cabal of Remainer cronies.
It was a brilliant coup, masterfully conducted with a sadist’s attention to detail.
All the ministers in the Cabinet were hauled up to Chequers, the Prime Minister’s country residence, where their phones were confiscated, as though they were naughty children. Then the stubbornly pro-Brexit ones who were rightly disgusted by the shaming sell-out deal May had cobbled together with her virulently Remainer civil servants were given the same choice Rommel was in 1944: cyanide pill or slow career death.
The cyanide pill option would have involved resigning immediately on principle: but then being ritually humiliated by having their official car confiscated and having to walk to the train station via the mile-long drive, or catch a cab, with a £67,000 pay cut.
A letter to each minister, leaked to the press, warned them of this beforehand. Petty, but given how vain ministers are, very effective.
None of the leading Brexiteers present – not Michael Gove, not even Boris Johnson whose last chance this was to establish himself as the credible voice of the Leave resistance – chose to do the decent thing. (Though Brexit Secretary David Davis has resigned since, as has his brilliant and principled junior minister Steve Baker – one of the unsung heroes of the Leave campaign).
Really, though, the “who did what to whom and why?” elements of this story are a distraction from the only thing that matters: Brexit has been sabotaged, democracy undermined, and the people betrayed by the Remainer establishment.
In June 2016, 17.4 million people — more than had ever voted for anything in British history — voted Brexit to free themselves from the clutches of that Remainer establishment. Now the Remainer establishment has responded as only it knows how: by ignoring the democratic will and shoring up its power base by whatever means necessary.
The two articles that best sum it up are this excellent leader from the Sunday Telegraph:
The dream has been dashed. We are still technically leaving, more or less, but there will be no revolution, no new deal between elites and voters, no great reset […]
Remember that British Euroscepticism began life as a revolt against petty regulations and controls – and all of those rules governing light bulbs and vacuum cleaners and working hours, however small they might have seemed, were indicative of the EU’s bureaucratic, integrating agenda. How ridiculous then that Britain should leave the EU only to voluntarily tie itself to those same rules.
Even worse, we are willingly giving up the right to push through radical free-market or pro-competition reforms by sticking to the EU’s social policies. How can we, as the world’s sixth largest economy, and a major market for the EU, be willing to hobble ourselves in such a way? We won’t be able to have our own competition policy, or energy policy, and we will remain part of a myriad of bodies and schemes. And why this obsession with access for manufactured goods, rather than for the dominant services sector? Why not trade one for the other: after all, that is what any sensible negotiator would have done.
Last Friday felt like a political coup by the establishment, and an abject surrender by the Brexiteers in Cabinet, along with their colleagues who say that they now accept Brexit.
We know two things for sure about the vote for Brexit, and both of them make the political class uncomfortable: first, that the poorer you are, the more likely it is that you voted Leave; and secondly, that most people voted Leave in order that Britain might assume greater sovereign control over her borders and her law-making. This was a fairly working-class revolt against the dilution of British sovereignty by Brussels and our own politicians who love Brussels.
I’m sorry, but it was. And what does Theresa May do, cheered on by ‘Soft Brexiteers’ and some Remainers too? She proposes the continued selling-off of British sovereignty through tying us into a customs arrangement that would limit our sovereign decision-making on trade, and keeping us beholden to certain ECJ rulings, which would limit our ability to make and live by our own laws.
This is a betrayal. A grotesque betrayal. It is a haughty rejection, in euphemistic language, of the great cry made by the 17.4m, which was for the recovery of national sovereignty and democratic authority. The electorate said ‘Britain should have control of its borders and laws’, and May says, ‘Actually let’s leave some of that control with Brussels’. This isn’t Soft Brexit; it is Remain by another name. When will our political leaders realise how serious, how historically serious, it is that they are reneging on the largest democratic act in British history? May should go. Chequers this weekend should be her ending. In her place, we need a leader who recognises the positive, democratic drive behind Brexit, and who is willing to make it a reality. If such a politician exists.
Brexit, it is now becoming clear, was our Peasants’ Revolt in more ways than one.
It was our Peasants’ Revolt in the sense that it was an uprising of ordinary people against an accountable elite.
It was also our Peasants’ Revolt in the way — after a brief pretence that the elite was listening: Richard II rode personally to meet Wat Tyler and his rebel forces at Smithfield — was ruthlessly put down with all the ringleaders executed.
These are sad times for Britain. Especially sad, for those of us, like the author of the Sunday Telegraph‘s leader who can remember how good it felt to be alive on the dawn the Brexit referendum result was announced…
The much anticipated resignation letter penned by the former UK Foreign Minister Boris Johnson has been released, and in as expected, he does not mince his words in unleashing a brutal attack on Thersa May, warning that "we have postponed crucial decisions — including the preparations for no deal, as I argued in my letter to you of last November — with the result that we appear to be heading for a semi-Brexit, with large parts of the economy still locked in the EU system, but with no UK control over that system."
He then adds that while "Brexit should be about opportunity and hope" and "a chance to do things differently, to be more nimble and dynamic, and to maximise the particular advantages of the UK as an open, outward-looking global economy", he warns that the "dream is dying, suffocated by needless self-doubt."
He then compares May's proposal to a submission even before it has been received by the EU, noting that "what is even more disturbing is that this is our opening bid. This is already how we see the end state for the UK — before the other side has made its counter-offer. It is as though we are sending our vanguard into battle with the white flags fluttering above them."
And his punchline: the UK is headed for the status of a colony:
In that respect we are truly headed for the status of colony — and many will struggle to see the economic or political advantages of that particular arrangement
Explaining his decision to resing, he then says that "we must have collective responsibility. Since I cannot in all conscience champion these proposals, I have sadly concluded that I must go."
It remains to be seen if his passionate defense of Brexit will stir enough MPs to indicate they are willing to back a vote of no confidence, and overthrow Theresa May in what would be effectively a coup, resulting in new elections and chaos for the Brexit process going forward.
Meanwhile, as Bloomberg adds, the fact that Boris Johnson, or those around him, made sure his resignation statement came out in time for the evening news - before it was formally issued in the traditional way by May's office, hints at his continued interest in leading the Conservative Party.
We have postponed crucial decisions — including the preparations for no deal, as I argued in my letter to you of last November — with the result that we appear to be heading for a semi-Brexit, with large parts of the economy still locked in the EU system, but with no UK control over that system.
It now seems that the opening bid of our negotiations involves accepting that we are not actually going to be able to make our own laws. Indeed we seem to have gone backwards since the last Chequers meeting in February, when I described my frustrations, as Mayor of London, in trying to protect cyclists from juggernauts. We had wanted to lower the cabin windows to improve visibility; and even though such designs were already on the market, and even though there had been a horrific spate of deaths, mainly of female cyclists, we were told that we had to wait for the EU to legislate on the matter.
Nigel Farage, who two years ago exited from UK politics, pledged to return to campaigning over Brexit once interim UKIP leader Gerard Batten reaches the end of his term in March. The traditionally outspoken Farage blasted Prime Minister Theresa May as she fights off a rebellion from within the conservative party following the resignations of Boris Johnson and David Davis.
The former trader dedicated his political career to pulling Britain out of the EU, and still serves as an member of the European Parliament for South East England. The ex-UKIP leader - who was one of the architects of Brexit, having been a leading voice in the campaign to leave - blasted the PM as “awful” and warned the “latest Brexit betrayal must be reversed”.
In a follow up tweet, Farage said that "unless Brexit is back on track by March 2019, I will seriously consider putting my name forward to return as @UKIP leader. The will of 17.4m voters must be carried out."
Unless Brexit is back on track by March 2019, I will seriously consider putting my name forward to return as @UKIP leader. The will of 17.4m voters must be carried out. pic.twitter.com/BNLtA6xPiJ
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) July 9, 2018
In July 2017, I wrote in the Telegraph that the great Brexit betrayal had begun. This observation, made after new transitional arrangements had been unveiled which showed Britain would effectively be tied to the EU until 2021, was met with the usual derision that I’ve come to expect. Some people even suggested that in making this remark I was trying to reignite my political career. As ever, it seems the great and the good did not understand my motives.
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