We awoke today to what many had suspected would be the inevitable result of the Brexit Party cleaning up in the European Elections, with margins considerably bigger than any of the other players involved.

Yet what we immediately also saw was the now culturally ingrained habit of commentators and politicians responding to what’s in front of them by interpreting it in whatever way suits them best and is in their view most likely to further their aims.

I am applying this rule universally. Because those giving opinions from all sides are attempting to interpret and propagate messages that are nothing more than wishful thinking. They don’t exist. They simply aren’t there.

These range from the collective vote given to the Lib Dem’s, Greens and Change UK being portrayed as equivocal to a clear majority for Remaining in the EU, to the cartoon picture of a giant Incredible Hulk looming over the Houses of Parliament with the picture apparently portraying that the Brexit Party is now on the rampage and Westminster is about to fall.

However it is that any of this makes you feel because of your views on Brexit, there is a dark reality about this way of conducting political business that we must now consider.

This is precisely the same process of reinterpreting events and giving them a different truth to suit their own cause that our Politicians have engaged with for the whole of the 35 Months since they first heard the European Referendum Result.

It’s a contributing part of everything that Parliament has done wrong.

It’s why democracy has been wheeled into intensive care.

It’s why everything about British Politics feels broken.

Reinterpretation of events, creating a new or convenient truth or narrative is the superbug present that makes Brexit and everything happening feel like it’s going to be impossible for anyone to be able to find a way to heal the divide that is now breaking out into an open, oozing sore.

The reality that all the Political Parties, their Politicians and the opinionati should be facing is yes, they can and are free to interpret these results any way they like. But if they all continue to pursue their own constructed narratives and present them to the Public as the truth, the situation is going to accelerate from bad to much worse.

The irony is that there is no way that a consensus will be found until Brexit has been delivered and we all share the same feeling that we are well on the way to having all these problems solved.

The Brexit Party technically won the European Elections.

The Lib Dems appeared to achieve a powerful and persuasive 2nd.

The Conservatives and Labour have left us with the picture that they are being read the last rights whilst they are putting it all down to little more than a Brexit-based cold.

Yet the reality is that this was a non-election.

It was never supposed to happen.

It’s a safe way for the Electorate to tell the Establishment that it is unhappy. Rather than it being in anyway a seismic change in constituency demographics – which as a story being put out by some this morning is only going to confuse matters further, rather than in itself giving a new form of legitimacy to any of the arguments that we are currently being sold.

It’s what the main Political Parties now take away from this Result and how they act or change their approach as a consequence of it that will really dictate how the future of our political and governmental system is going to unfold.

As things actually stand at the moment the Conservatives are still in power at Westminster and along with the Labour Party form one of only two tribal and therefore credible choices for most of us when an a Westminster Election is called. That is when what is perceived to be the real impact of Politics on our lives is actually involved.

This particular Vote has been nothing more than the People putting Westminster on Notice.

The Electorate is telling the Establishment that it wants and is demanding change.

And whilst the handling of Brexit is a big part of the change that Voters are seeking, none of this is now and has ever been about Brexit alone.

Politicians no longer have the choice of returning to the old politics, rather than changing to go forward. That is if they want to survive.

But it’s not simply because of the Brexit Party that the old order is on its way to being destroyed.

If the Conservative and Labour Parties should now finally awake from their willful slumber, they will still have a key role in our future – of that much we can all be sure.

Yet things are different than they were in the past at anytime and Party loyalty is no longer the biggest noise in Town.

The switch in priority that Politicians must now embrace fully for the People to begin trusting them again is quite simple. It’s all about delivery in every form.

And the kind of change now necessary might well mean for at least for the foreseeable future, that majority governments are not the way the destiny of this Country will be realised.

The immediate question that many will now be asking is ‘How this will all affect the make up and leadership of the next Conservative Government’. Because one thing that does regrettably look certain is that none of the Conservative Leadership Candidates now on offer look likely to be either able or prepared to depart fully from the old politics that has wrecked their Party. At least not in the timely, ruthless and clinical way that the change required necessitates.

The fate of the Conservative Party is now completely entwined with the outcome of Brexit.

If Conservatives want to survive as a Party beyond Brexit they are likely to have to accept very quickly that they will need help to win a working majority in a General Election which will be vital to secure a clean, No Deal Brexit for the longer term.

It will also be essential to sure up the necessary process and period of transition for the Party and therefore maintain the UK conservative cause.

The biggest change required of the Conservative MPs and Politicians, if they want their Party to survive, is to recognise AND accept that the Conservative Party IS NOT ‘the natural party of government’. That Conservatives don’t have a god-given right to rule.

Above all, that the Country, our communities, our businesses and OUR ELECTORATE are much bigger and much more important than anything to do with their self-interest, which has been a big part of everything wrong with Politics, the roll-out of policy and a whole lot more.

The upshot of all this is not compromising on anything just to achieve a false perception of harmony.

It’s about taking each and every step necessary to get the right results for the People.

That means working with others outside the Party, and if necessary working with the Brexit Party to win a General Election this coming Autumn, so that Brexit is not only delivered and becomes the catalyst for positive UK change that it was always supposed to be. But keeps open the door to opportunities and secures the whole thing as being what is right for everyone. A truly National cause.

 

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Our democracy is disintegrating. The People are frustrated with everything political. The world that looked up to our once model Parliament cannot believe what they are watching. Together, everyone outside of Westminster is in a state of complete and utter despair.

Yet the Tories think this is the right time to put everything on hold whilst they run a  Leadership contest. And they aren’t even going to start it for a fortnight – just so they can save the feelings of the outgoing Prime Minister, who has been a contingent part of creating the whole mess in the first place. It’s either a catastrophic level of ignorance at work, or arrogance at the highest degree.

Time really does wait for no man. And with the next deadline for our exit from the EU booked for the 31st of October, they have a responsibility to get on and deliver a Parliamentary Consensus that will facilitate our clean Brexit.

It will not help to bring the two sides back together, if they cannot appoint a Leader who is able to lead us all and takes what might look like an attractive option of simply letting us ‘crash out’.

The Brexit Party has demonstrated how quickly a winning Election Campaign can be put together and will gain traction, if the messages and content is right and clear.

If the Conservatives now appoint the right Leader – one not been compromised by stupidity such as being tied to the ideas of the old politics like One Nation Conservatism, they can win a General Election by the end of October comfortably.

But its only by changing their thinking and accepting that a working majority can be secured and won to facilitate Brexit.

Such an outcome will not be possible, if ambition and the ridiculousness of a drawn out Leadership contest is indulged, whilst the Country is in the middle of a crisis and demands a new and robust form of political leadership. Change will certainly not be modelled on how well a bunch of out-of-touch Tories can remodel and market the old way of political thinking and what still looks very much like a self serving cause.

All the rules of this old politics have long since gone out of the window. If the Tories still want a chance to be taken seriously, they should overcome this untimely desire to stick to a foolish protocol, which is simply making them all look like a bunch of clowns.

If these Conservative MPs have any sense left and any desire to change as the Electorate is shouting loudly and telling them with the march of their feet that they should, they will use the time between now and the end of May in June wisely. Shut their MPs away and not emerge until they have selected a new Leader, who can then take over immediately from the outgoing PM immediately in early June as they should.

They will then have over 4 months to do everything necessary to turn the tables on this chaos, on the EU and start to deliver the People’s Brexit – which rather than simply saving their Party, should now be their only real direction and cause.

 

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Just at the very moment you think the Parliamentary Conservatives can do the Party no more harm, One Nation Conservatism gets rolled out again and instead of embracing new and original thinking, the few voices of hope instead show their true colours and make clear that after Brexit, they simply intend to start singing the same old sorry song.

If the seeming inability of the ERG and Brexit-supporting MPs to remove May clinically and decisively in time to save both their Party and possibly the British Political system itself were not bad enough – being made so brutally clear by the upsurge in support for the Brexit Party, even the merest hint that the truth underpinning the Conservative Party today is a view that nothing other than our relationship with the EU has changed, tells us all that their MPs are failing to realise that they are still embracing the Old Politics and are destined to fail.

Change in politics is no longer a choice.

If the Conservatives continue to cling to the wreckage of the Old Politics by choice, simply by rebranding it whilst carrying on as normal with the belief that paying lip service is all that it will take to convince an Electorate already weary of lies, that words are all it takes to change politics and no more, the Party will not be seen as in any way credible.

The Brexit Party will clean up. Not because it is offering something meaningful for the long term – it clearly is not. But because it is successfully talking up what People actually want and is therefore inspiring people from all political angles and persuasions, even though it will be hard pressed even to deliver Brexit, let alone anything more.

If the drop in polling numbers is not sending the right message for the Conservative MPs  in this lame Parliament today, that ‘this is the way that things have always been done’ is no longer acceptable; that they now must think differently and use Brexit as the baseline opportunity as a means for a better future, rather than a flash in the pan and nothing more, the People are going to judge them all as finished and look for solutions elsewhere. The Conservative Party will simply be no more.

The point of no return is now arriving.

May should have already been long gone.

The result of the European Elections this week will make clear for everyone very loudly what no change within any of the incumbent Westminster Parties has in store.

This is the last chance saloon for a future based on the existing model of British Politics.

But if the ideas, approach and policies don’t change, politics and therefore our democracy are quickly going to look very different.

The ease of electoral participation that we have all been taking for granted will evaporate.

It will be replaced by the darkness that is created by populism when it has gone too far to be headed off.

All because at the time that it could have been, when those that have the power right now to work proactively to do so simply refuse to accept that the world around them has changed and they have to put doing what’s right first, instead of reverting to type and pretending that all our problems are about just one issue and that they have otherwise been right all along.

Wake up guys. Because the age of the free ride and gravy train of party politics in the UK simply exists no more.

They say that Politics is a long game, and in many respects it certainly is. But to the significant number of us who pay little or sparse attention – that is unless our politicians have become so brazen as to reject the result of our vote in a referendum – the focus is usually only fleeting and extends into impacts that can be measured simply in terms of what might happen in days or perhaps just weeks ahead.

Equally, an elephant trap of epic proportions for us all is to mistake commonality with others over one issue for commonality between us covering all.

Yes, people actually do assume that agreement over one thing gives license to talk, project and even act as if there is agreement within that form of community over them all.

This is why the European Referendum Vote to Leave the EU very quickly became toxic to those who are from the Remain camp. Because it is cheap and easy to condemn the actions of one you find disagreeable by categorising any shared commonality between that one and with the all.

Hence with a lazy reverse twist action, the few far-right voices who shared that commonality of being pro-Leave, resulted in an assumed and dangerous commonality being imposed upon all Leavers, by lazy and unthinking Remainers – an act of using the same brush to tar them all.

I am making this point, not in an attempt to become some kind of apologist. I have no need to, as the wide-reaching nature of the circumstances and the attack on democratic reason that has become the seedbed of the Brexit Party, has already brought together people from all backgrounds and political persuasions – all as we watch the established Political Parties in complete free-fall.

I am making this point because the success of the Brexit Party today is shielding the reality that there is no substance to anything that it is doing.

The Brexit Party IS a single issue Party.

No matter how valid and important the impact the Brexit Party has already had, if it succeeds in destroying the Old Politics model as it appears well on the way to doing so, it is not bringing anything new to the political or government table as it does.

The Brexit Party is currently incapable of being a credible replacement, even for the complete shit show that we already have.

There is a significant danger underpinning the Brexit Party’s rise. Because with words and slogans like ‘changing politics for good’ the Party is attempting to sell a political product that people will not perceive as separate from the comparatively simple task of Leaving the EU.

When the change that people are now associating or defining as being all about Brexit is not delivered, they will experience disappointment again, in the same way that they now feel they have been robbed by politicians, rather than Brexit fulfilled simply being a step in the process or journey towards achieving something that nobody in living memory has experienced – as they should.

Whilst I have been against the European Union from when I was first able to vote, I have also spent many years in frontline politics.

I know that making hollow promises to make it appear easier to get one issue dealt with and over the line is almost guaranteed to create many more problems than it could ever solve.

Brexit and the decision to Leave the EU always had significant legs of its own to stand on.

But politicians who were opportunistic took to selling it with cheap and easy words, rather than making any attempt to put together, translate and elucidate the in-depth arguments that would have ultimately – and more effectively won the day.

So supporting the Brexit Party – whilst I completely agree with the principle of their one argument, is simply not something that I can do.

The issues that led to Brexit are simply too far reaching and have consequences and impacts that just the act of Leaving the EU – as we already should have done – will not on its own resolve.

The tragedy is that there is for me – as a lapsed conservative – no other option to vote for.

None of these Political Parties are stepping away from the existing or Old Politics model. A model of doing things in government that is all about power being concentrated in the hands of the powerful and only doing what is considered politically expedient to secure election wins and continuity of the vote when they come.

This Country really is today at a terrible impasse. Because voting for any of the Political Parties that have presented themselves ready for the European Elections will only guarantee that we ultimately retain the same version of broken politics that we now so badly want changed.

It’s just wrapped up differently, cleverly attuned and playing on our emotions. Thereby treating us all like nobodies. Because for politicians of the ‘Old Politics’, this is always only be about just one thing.

 

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No. This is not Groundhog Day. May’s ‘deal’ really may be on its way back to the Commons next week and the result could precipitate a lot more than a phantom EU Withdrawal.

Although it is becoming disturbingly clear that many of our MPs still cannot or simply just refuse to see it, the majority of Voters are as frustrated as they are disturbed as they are angry about what our elected representatives have already done.

But this understanding is not based upon the premise that we all believe that MPs should have unequivocally supported May’s bastard child of a Withdrawal Agreement.

No. The anger, frustration and open questioning is present because the many that have trusted so few with the responsibility for seeing Brexit delivered, cannot believe that those elected to represent us have pretty much all played a part in frustrating our Exit from the EU.

A decision that was made democratically.

An instruction from the Majority of People.

Yet so far prevented by the now mistrusted few.

We know and understand that May’s Withdrawal Agreement is not Brexit. And any MP who now, after all that has happened, chooses to support it, will be remembered for their betrayal of the British People by supporting this sell-out.

It is a plan and strategy that could have been changed at many points over the past 3 years to ensure that by now, we would have together have been more than 6 weeks in to a new chapter of British history that would have been something very new and progressively set to improve.

May’s Withdrawal Agreement has not, is not and never will be an appropriate or legitimate mechanism for the UK to exit the EU.

Our MPs now have to take the responsibility that they have been given and create the environment in which Brexit can be delivered as has been and continues to be required.

It is simply not good enough to bitch and complain that there aren’t the Parliamentary numbers to go forward or to use the fixed term Parliaments Act as some kind of safety net from risk to their own positions and suggest that the General Election which is now inevitable, can be in some way legitimately delayed.

Any MP and particularly those leadership hopefuls among them, who attempts to use support for this travesty of an agreement to demonstrate cooperation and buy-in to party working will be clearly and categorically going against the Will of the People. Worse still, they will be assisting this borrowed-time Prime Minister to achieve her plan for a proper Brexit to be denied.

The underlying truth of May’s plan is the elephant in the room and the whole of the Brexit Process that May has overseen is an elephant trap for the unwary amongst our self serving MPs and particularly those of them who put the realities of genuine public feeling to one side.

These sitting MPs will not be forgiven if they fail to take the opportunity to hear the mood music and to listen to what the People now demand of them.

The People require a proper, clean and no-strings Brexit. Only after which should our future relationship with the EU be considered any further if the unelected bureaucrats in Brussels have not already changed their own tune significantly by that time.

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