Month: June 2019

If this is how the best of the field to be PM already shapes up, we really are in trouble now

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The infamous ‘dead mans hand’. Boris or Hunt will inherit their very own version within a month. The question is will their premiership be murdered immediately, possibly by their own side, or can they step beyond expectations and everything we now see as being so very, very wrong?

Nobody should be in any doubt that Theresa May had to go. There is also little doubt that Boris – for reasons way beyond his character alone – was and is probably still the only candidate available who could facilitate a way out this political and potentially constitutional mess.

The problem is, that in his finest hour, Boris is displaying nothing fine in terms of a soon-to-be PM at all.

And it’s not like he isn’t being given the chance.

Some of us have been concerned by what looks like Boris’ regressive steps on policy to buy off Conservative MP support for many weeks.

But with the stage now reached where Conservative MPs (other than Hunt) are absolutely no further risk to his bid, he is not doing anything to say, reassure or at the very least demonstrate that he is ready to leave stupidity like ‘One Nation Conservatism’, the old politics that has now been rejected, or indeed the worst parts in May’s tenure and her management of the Brexit process behind.

We hear of the multifaceted anachronism that is ‘One Nation Conservatism’ seemingly at every turn.

Yet the People don’t want to hear about Conservatives working just for one – i.e. themselves – anymore.

We’ve been there. We’ve done that. It’s why we are in the mess that we are now in.

Then there’s this spurious idea that May’s Withdrawal Agreement, that the EU has always rigidly told us couldn’t be unpicked, can now be unpicked. Does anyone really need to say anymore?

The only way that Brexit can be solved and the doors to opportunity opened as they should be, is to ditch the whole ridiculous waste of time that was May’s travesty of a deal, go back to the People with a new Manifesto, and if necessary a formal Electoral Pact with the Brexit Party – as any true conservative leader putting the Country above self and Party surely now would not only realise, but accept and be prepared to communicate that they have to.

Yet the biggest flaw to have now become so rawly exposed, is Boris unwillingness to come clean about what most people living in the real world would have written off as a simple domestic argument.

The politics involved didn’t actually matter, because in the age of social media it’s sadly what we have become used to.

No. It’s the lack of honesty or openness and willingness to show a human side that has now left this would-be Prime Minister so perilously exposed to an ongoing trial by media that endangers not only his premiership before it begins, but also the whole Brexit cause.

Neither Hunt nor Boris could become what we might visualise as being the perfect PM.

Hunt, because he is an ardent Remainer, who like May before him will do the minimum he perceives possible to take what he believes to be some kind of middle road, keeping us fully committed to the EU, whilst crafting some kind of fix and covering message designed to lay the foundations of the argument that the Referendum Result has been honoured, but is strangely then acceptable to all involved.

Boris, because his talents and abilities were better suited to 3 years ago, when May hadn’t already set up her predecessor to fail by walking away from the table, leaving the legacy of a brexit-age dead mans hand that will only be escapable if she is replaced by a player who can rise to the very significant needs of the occasion.

Make no mistake that the situation the next Prime Minister is about to inherit will require the capability to provide not just history-making leadership, but vision, understanding, drive and a level of selflessness – unrecognisable in todays politics – that will make their tenure a worth a whole lot more.

Yet being ‘all that’ doesn’t have to be about the person, the character, the man who will be the next Prime Minister alone.

It is the actions that the next Prime Minister will take and the people they surround themselves with who advise them, that will contribute to what history will see as their own specific legacy and no more.

If neither Boris nor Hunt can face up to the reality of the situation that awaits them, the fact is that their time as Prime Minister is already a lost cause and it will be remarkably short.

Brexit will be the legacy by which they could easily become the third Prime Minister crushed by Brexit, instantly recognisable for nothing more.

To succeed, they MUST work with that very dark hand that they have been given, and accept that the leadership they will have to demonstrate is immediately about coalition, not only with Nigel Farage and the Brexit Party, but with the People and the Electorate itself. They MUST employ a vision and robustness which will look out for the interests not only for those who Voted Leave, but also for those that Voted Remain.

The alternative to doing so is simple and the direction of travel will not be a choice which either of them will have.

If they fail to recognise the direction that they sill soon have to take, we will either all suffer at the hands of a Marxist Government that wants to crush everything that encourages success and individuality for anyone and everyone. Or we will be thrust back into the hands of the EU on punitive – not just surrender terms – that will very quickly demonstrate what bad choices the Conservative Party and a series of Prime Ministers have consistently made.

image thanks to wikipedia

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Brexit is the doorway to change

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Brexit is the only way that the UK can access all the opportunities that are now open to it. Not only for our economy, but for us to ensure that each and every one of us has real equality of opportunity in life, in education and in the workplace, so that together, we, our communities and the whole Country is then enabled to realise everything that it has the capability to become.

As people, as individuals, as who we alone really are, we like to have the freedom to make choices when it comes to the decisions that will affect what we can do, what we have, where we go, who we are friends with, who we have relationships with, what we believe – to choose who we actually are.
The UK as a Country and Nation is no different.
Those choices and decisions are just scaled up and instead being about each and every one of us as People, are instead about us and our identity as a whole Country.
Its about who as a Nation, its community and businesses together, that we really are.
Just as we cannot make choices as children, when we are subjected to a controlling relationship of any kind, or placed in any situation where we do not have the freedom to respond to the world around us freely as the people that we actually are, the UK has been and is currently in this very kind of relationship with the EU. Its holding us back and we don’t know who we really are.
By Leaving the EU properly – which is what a democratic majority of as has already chosen to do, we can take back the choices which make us free, and will allow us together as a Nation, to regain our confidence and make the right decisions that will reflect our communities, our people, our geography, our culture, our economics, our relationship with the whole world and besides all of that, a whole lot more.
Whilst we will always have things in common with every Country in the World, the reality is we are in the majority of ways simply not the same.
To get the best out of everything and be an influence for the better we must respect the limitations of a corrosive relationship where values are being set for us under the premise that we can only get the best available if everything is the same.
Our strength lies in our diversity. That the UK is different to every other Nation on the Earth. Just as the internal strength within will get stronger as we respect and make the best of the differences that we have between all of us as people, thriving together, but independently within our different lives and roles.
We can only be the Country and Nation that we are supposed to be if we have the freedom to choose what we do.
Released from the shackles of rules that are undemocratically imposed, our lives will begin to improve immediately as a balance comes back in decision making that makes sense to us and the localities involved.
This isn’t idealistic thinking. Idealism is the premise that everybody can be conditioned to be the same when we clearly are not.
We have something much better lying ahead for all of us and Brexit is the Doorway to Change.

The EU’s stranglehold over the UK: How impractical idealism created a real-life straightjacket

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The attraction to Membership of the EU is not something that can or should be easily dismissed. It is highly deceptive.

We have been continually sold solutions to gatekeeper issues that sound very simple, are usually highly appealing and play to the idea that being part of the EU is a one-way street to improved quality of life for everyone involved.
The problem is that behind those gatekeeper issues, such as the Working Time Directive of the Social Chapter, sit many knock-on effects and consequences that are not talked about but will almost certainly impact many areas of life and business that actually make lives for many if not most much harder to live.
Again, it’s a case of idealism hurting the many whilst glorifying the ideas of the untouched few.
The nature of the relationship with the EU and its forerunners that the UK was obliged to sign up to when it became a Member means that the many rules that follow as the result of opening the door to one of these ‘big ideas’ simply get created in Brussels and then rubber stamped by our own Government and our Civil Servants.
The reality of Law and Rule Making in Brussels is that we and our Parliament get no say. Rules and Laws created in the EU are simply sent across the Channel and then imposed.
So in the case of something like the Working Time Directive and the Employment Laws that surround it, the impact on our businesses of rules made by bureaucrats that have no understanding of running or managing businesses is to restrict working practices very tightly. The result is that businesses can becomes less profitable, less productive and for employees it might well mean less opportunity in every sense possible – that’s it they don’t actually lose their jobs.
This nanny-state management is actually representative of undemocratic coercion at best.
It is probably already a lot worse and would get increasingly so, if for any reason we were to end up having to Remain.
We should never hesitate to dream about creating a world which is better and works fairly and without prejudice for all.
But this is itself a dream with many steps to get there and there is the practical reality of how the real world works standing in the way before any journey can be planned to get there, or the downside of forcing this idyllic upside will hurt a lot more people than it will ever help along the way.
The EU and its direction for the future is based solely on impractical idealism.
Yes, the UK needs powerful aspiration for something better for all.
But the journey to our future must at every step be based on practical reality and understanding of how the world and human behaviour actually works. Nothing more.

The United States of Europe: Supranational Aims and Lost Identities for us all

One of the biggest lies we have and are being told, most tellingly because of a veil of silence around it, it where the EU is actually going. What Remaining a Member of it would actually mean and how the UK staying within the Bloc is more likely to help this hidden grand plan unfold.

The people who designed what we today or at this stage know to be the European Union were very clever about concealing their aims.
They knew how to play not only people, but also politicians who lacked wherewithal and vision, so they could all become manipulated by certain truths whilst facilitating the development of something much greater which was always the underlying aim.
The history of this idea is not post Second World War as many would now like to claim. It’s inception was around 100 years ago – its just the case that some of the ‘values’ that were used as a way to sell it had not by that time changed.
As any plan that we have has unfolded, for the architects of the EU the process was very similar, if not just the same.
It began with finding a way to solve a problem, then the solution opened the door to other possibilities and options and that was how a grand plan towards a United States of Europe was actually made.
The whole thing as we know it started off with controlling and harmonizing the European Market in steel as a way to prevent Countries from having the resources as their disposal to contemplate or actually go about starting Europe-sized wars.
This progressed to harmonization of trade and the creation of the so-called Common Market which was the sweetie that was used as an incentive to suck the UK in.
It has since progressed much further beyond that to the point where any law or regulation that can influence or be influenced by trade across the EU is it has not already been, will within time be included within.
The process of Europisation has been sold under the highly attractive proposition of bringing down barriers to trade, opening up markets, furthering progressive ideals and being much better for everyone within.
But the process has been one of harmonizing whole peoples, which are culturally, geographically, linguistically and in just about every way different on the false pretence that we can be forced to be the same.
It means that those who make the rules or are able to influence their creation are the ones that will always win.
Key to the successful creation of the United States of Europe, is the loss of identity within Nations or what they want to rename States within.
Many people today question why we are no longer comfortable with our British Culture and confident about our place in the world.
But this is not about guilt or an Imperial past which we still have many reasons to be proud of.
Its because we have allowed a Foreign State to take over the way we function by bringing in rules and regulations that supposedly make life better – all unseen and by the back door.
Brexit is and definitely will continue to be a challenge. But it is a real doorway to massive opportunity just the same.
We just have to get our Politicians to accept that the UK – not the EU – is the only real cause.

The Real EU Story is one that never gets told

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If you work, live and function outside then world of Politics or one of the sectors or professions that are aligned with or feed into it, you are likely to struggle to remember very much about the history of the EU if you are asked.

In fact, we generally don’t consciously think about the history of the EU in any way at all.
There is a reason for this. It’s deliberate. It’s why so many of us walk around with the unrecognised belief that the EU is an entity that always existed and simply was.
If we were to all be taught the EU’s history as a proper text-book style topic, it would raise too many questions from too many people who would have too many reasons to then doubt that Membership is in no way what is all cracked-up to be.
That Membership is an ongoing assault on democracy, identity, freedom, business, community, ideas and everything that pipes right down to the level of each of us as individuals.
It’s simply not the way that things should be.
This history would also explain to the masses, that the EU is continually developing its reach in every way. Whether its simply through the addition of new Member States or what are actually Countries, through Laws, Regulations and just about every other way that the reach of Government and the Public Sector can be used to change and condition lives on the basis of harmonizing or making everything the same across a whole Continent. Not based on the simple alternative of facilitating and encouraging a common good.
We cannot expect everyone to learn, know and understand the reality of what the EU is, it’s back-story and motivations, and more importantly, what the EU actually does.
We can or rather should be able to expect our elected MPs and Politicians to do this for us. But they don’t.
And because most of them see and understand the reality of the EU no better than any normal person would when they simply have no problems with the world around them, this is why we have been watching so many of them stand in the way of democracy, behaving like they know the real truth around the question of Brexit, when nobody that Voted to Leave really does.

Brexit is the symptom, not the cause

It was once said that a week is a long time in politics. It’s a saying that carries a lot of truth. Especially as we all seem to forget what has happened very easily and just as soon.

Whilst we would probably all share the view that it feels like there has never been anything other than Brexit happening in Politics, the reality is that it is only a feeling. And one that is far from true.
In fact, the term ‘Brexit’ wasn’t even around before the European Referendum in 2016. Yet we all feel like it must have been the first word that the language specialists had on the list when the first dictionary was made.
Yet because Brexit gives us the feeling that it has simply taken over everything to do with Government, it has becomes just as easy to conclude that Brexit is responsible for all the problems that we are having, when the truth is that it is not.
Brexit means different things to different people, because it has brought an identity to solving what for everyone might be a different view of the problems with Government, neatly packaged up for a solution or remedy in a way that identified Leaving the EU as the way that it could all be cured.

That focus, distillation of ideas or coming together over a common cause has also made it easy to blur the edges of the contributory issues and causes of those experiences that we have all had just the same. And this has meant that those looking for a source of their own anger about Brexit happening have simply concluded that every problem and issue that Members of the Public have are synonymous with Brexit. And that with Brexit stopped, they will simply disappear and everything will return to being the same.

They won’t.

The issues that we have with Government and Public Services, the old politics based on self interest, the malign influence of EU Policy on almost every part of life, all came into being and have been developing as significant contributory factors that prompted a majority of the British Public to Vote to Leave the EU in 2016. This is how Brexit was made.

Brexit is a symptom of many problems. Brexit is not the cause.

Brexit: We fear change – but only when we are aware of it

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We’ve heard an awful lot of Politicians and Activists tell us that a No Deal Brexit would be a catastrophe. But who exactly would a No Deal Brexit be a catastrophe for?

When we start to look more closely at the reasons people have for not believing that Leaving the EU is a good choice, it is usually because they have a job, income or some other form of beneficial relationship with someone or something that they expect will be affected negatively in some way when we Leave.
More often than not, many other people who Voted for and support the idea of Remaining as a Member of the EU do so, simply, because the UK being a Member of the EU is all that they have ever known.
The misconception about Remaining within the EU, is the idea that things will always stay the same.
In fact, things are always changing in the EU and have been doing so right from the time it began some six decades ago.
The most obvious sign of the changes in the EU has been the name changes and the introduction of the Euro to all the other Member States.
But underneath the façade, things are changing and being changed all the time. Laws which have been developed undemocratically by bureaucrats in Brussels as part of a plan to harmonise everything throughout the EU Member States have simply been adopted by the current UK Government and many successive Governments before them because we are obligated to do so.
Often, as was the case with Devolution in Scotland and Wales, our Governments have kept more controversial changes pushed on us by the EU quiet, by portraying or rather selling them as being their own.
The funny thing is, when we don’t have a choice about change, we rarely notice what’s actually going on.
Brexit was different, because we were actually given a choice.
Yes, Leaving the EU was a choice and it will represent a lot of change.
But change is happening to and around us all the time. Change is a natural thing for us to do. And Brexit is a change that will give us back the power to choose the changes we make and all that as a Country we do.

The pretence that the UK MUST have a Deal with the EU to Leave is a myth

On Thursday 23rd June 2016, UK Voters made the democratic choice to Leave the EU.

The choice was very simple. It was binary or rather ‘choose one way or the other’.
 
The choice was Leave the EU, or Remain a Member. There were no other options. No dependent options, or depending on this or depending on that of any sort.
 
There was no instruction to MPs to go away and then create many shades of Brexit, based on their own view of whether we should Leave or Remain.
 
Above all, We did not give authority to our MPs to go away and create, decide upon, or agree terms with the EU in ways that suited them, depending on how they got along.
 
The decision of the People was clear. The decision of the People was to Leave the EU without any strings attached.
 
Even the suggestion that the UK must have a deal before it can Leave the EU was, is and always will be a myth.
 
We will always have a relationship with the EU and We don’t need or require an obligatory deal before we actually Leave to have one.
 
 It’s healthy and normal to walk away at the end of a marriage without either party dictating how the other must then behave.

Ten for No.10 when it comes to the Top Job. But ZERO applications for leading the UK properly and taking the responsibility required to make Brexit stick and open up the doors for us all to the bright new world beyond

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With the timeline the applicants for the post of Prime Minister have had, you would be forgiven for concluding they are all applying for a job. Especially as the promises they are making are of the kind that only those who have had no experience of working within the organisation they are about to join would dare make before they have actually seen inside.

The problem with this scenario is of course that the applicants are all well and truly time-served when it comes to the question of whether or not they should know better, and the role of any MP and in particular that of our Prime Minister is a responsibility and should never have become the epitome of a career coming together in the way that no less than ten wannabes falling over themselves to get the keys to Downing Street will be.

Promises have so far ranged from tax breaks for higher rate taxpayers to building millions of new homes to raising the rate of the living wage. One can only wonder what is yet to come.

All of this, as it stands, flies in the face of a harsh reality they all face. That the dynamics in Parliament that we have today will not have and will not change just because Theresa May has gone and one of them is then in No.10.

Brexit will not be completed in any meaningful or lasting way before there is a working majority of MPs that support it and the process necessary to get there.

Above all those MPs will have to be ready and committed to supporting the Government to take whatever steps will be necessary to get us there.

This option isn’t available in any way, shape or form as things stand.

Yet there is wishful thinking by the bucketload when it comes to suggesting that a ‘shiney new PM in Downing Street’ will be all it takes to achieve the impossible, when anybody looking at this all with a critical eye and a healthy dose of reality would never even hint that it can be done.

Leaving without a Deal and nothing else changed on 31st October is possible for sure – If this Remain-led Parliament doesn’t get in the way. But it will simply end up with the whole process spinning on a sixpence, going into reverse drive and with the UK going straight back into the EU on utterly dreadful terms the other way.

Leaving with a Deal of any sort and in particular anything based on May’s travesty of an attempt at Brexit is also simply not in play.

That means that the only solution to actually achieve the Brexit that People Voted for in June 2016 – and at a minute to 12 save the Conservative Party from irreparable harm – is to go back to the People, putting unrealistic nostalgia about the Party to one side – and build a Coalition to deliver Brexit of the like that has never been seen before in the UK outside of wartime.

This is the only formula that has any chance of sweeping the obstruction and undemocratic behaviour of self-interested MPs that are incumbent in the current Parliament to one side.

A General Election is now unavoidable if any Leader genuinely wants to delver Brexit in any meaningful way. For the Conservative Party, all alternatives end in a place called doom.

Yes, the option of an Autumn General Election sounds far from attractive to any Prime Ministerial hopeful who will surely have their heart sat on staying in No.10 for a longer period than Theresa May.

But what the next Leader of the Conservative Party wants on a personal or career level really is a moot point.

Yes, this so-called contest might be being played out in the pubic realm like its something very important and has meaning for things to come.

But if the new appointee in Downing Street cannot face up to the reality that responsibilities of being our next Prime Minister are so much greater than the kudos of simply getting the job, the whole exercise just spells a whole lot more trouble for the UK than May really ever was.

It’s a long time since the UK has faced a crisis of the magnitude and kind that it does now.

In some ways, the absence of such problems has allowed complacency to get in the way.

And that complacency has opened to doors to career politics taking over at the cost of genuine public service, real leadership and what MPs should really be prepared not only to do, but to do so automatically when real trouble comes the UK’s way.

What is called for now in the attributes of our next Prime Minister is a level of humility and the ability to work with others that many Conservatives in Parliament clearly do not understand and accept as being the right way.

Regrettably it would appear at present that without exception, all ten of the Leadership Candidates are amongst that number.

The boundaries and restrictions of overvaluing the Conservative Party Brand has to be put to one side. This outdated approach has to be considered subservient to that of regaining control of our out-of-control Parliament, to delivering Brexit and to then restoring Democracy to the UK by focusing on delivery and end results rather than getting tied down by who gets the glory and the method that was taken to actually get us there.

There is simply no option but to accept that the General Election now required MUST be fought on the overriding ticket of who will give the People the Brexit that we Voted for.

To do that, there MUST be a Manifesto in place that brings Politicians together from all sides.

A Manifesto that demonstrates that there is a politics which can and will unite us all.

A Manifesto that will ultimately bridge the Leave vs. Remain divide.

A Manifesto that will facilitate the emergence of a new framework and mechanism for Public Policy that will deliver equitably for everyone. Not just those who have already got a whole lot more in whatever way.

Right now, it doesn’t look like any of this has any chance of happening. That should concern us all when we look ahead to what happens next.

The question that these Candidates need to be asking themselves is, ‘What is more important: Delivering whats best for the UK and doing whatever it takes – no matter how hard it might be to get us there. Or the alternative of putting self-interest, career, Party and keeping or staying in power as long as possible as the only priority?’

Over to you guys. The choice is yours to decide.

Want a real Brexit and Corbyn kept out of No.10? – A General Election is now the only way…

images-2Coverage of the result of the Peterborough By-Election actually felt different. Maybe even a little odd. But perhaps prescient of the direction our Politics is now going – a place where there is no control or script and it all seems to be in the hands of the gods.

Within hours of this blog being published, the gurus of political interpretation will have of course broken the whole thing up and began spinning it into many different, but for them, primarily self-serving ways. However, the reality will nonetheless remain underneath it all that Politics in this Country has changed and things are never going to be the same again.

Yet the politicians refuse to see it.

They are still looking at everything coming at them through the lens of the old politics – and yes, I’m even including the Brexit Party as being one of them in this instance too.

To perhaps understand this a little better, it is important to consider the Peterborough result.

Yes, the Labour Candidate was Elected. But the Brexit Party Candidate wasn’t far behind them and it would be foolish to frame the Conservative Candidate’s 3rd place as being outside of the same room.

Somewhere, probably in London today, different conversations will be taking place around the realities of what can be gleaned from the way the vote was split.

Some of this thinking will simply be deluded. Some of it will be based on outright fear. But what will be common among all of it will be the view that the problem is outside of the Politicians hands, outside of their Party’s control and that it will be something or someone else who is getting it all wrong.

With the Peterborough result for these three Political Parties and the wider Westminster Polls being dispersed between them and the Liberal Democrats as they are, you can bet that the debate will end up for many of them concluding that First Past The Post is now redundant and should be replaced by some other form of electoral system that will benefit the de facto righteousness of their position – such as PR.

What they fail to observe, or deliberately overlook and therefore do not accept, is the reason that none of them – even with Brexit involved – is offering the leadership, vision and inspiration that is necessary to formulate the public policy that the People now want and is required of our Politicians and their Parties not just for Brexit, but as we step off into a world based on A New Politics beyond.

Playing around with the Electoral System will only benefit the Political Parties and the Politicians themselves.

It will sure up, consolidate and in some cases expand their presence and position.

But the upshot is that the opportunity to provide the kind of decisiveness and defining leadership that we now need in British Politics more than ever, will simply be lost.

Brexit and the future of this Country requires good leadership and the decisiveness that goes with it by the truckload. Without it the mess we are now in is set to get a whole lot worse.

What Politicians should understand from the results and polling as they are, is that no Political Party is currently capable of commanding a working majority in Parliament.

Without a working majority, neither Brexit nor anything substantial in terms of the changes to and creation of new Policy that our People now need is going to be addressed in any meaningful and lasting way. That simply has to change.

The biggest risk to Brexit and to our Democracy –  make no mistake that the two are now intricately linked – is that the new Conservative Leadership will continue onwards and go all out to enable a No Deal Exit from the EU by 31st of October – just so the Conservative Party can claim that they have achieved and can take ownership of that result.

If the current Parliamentary dynamic doesn’t stop them before they do so, there is a storm cloud awaiting them on the other side. Because it is there that the Remain majority in Parliament – if it has not been changed – will have an incredibly hard stick to beat the Government with, and the ability to make serious hay from the sunshine that they will see pouring over them from the inevitable problems that will follow a No Deal Brexit that has been executed in this specific way.

Taking the UK back into the EU on the turnaround of a sixpence is not something that any Political Party with designs or long term aspirations on being the natural party of government is going to want to do. Especially when the straightjacket that the UK will have no choice but to accept as part of a completely one-way and loaded bargain will inevitably become poison for whoever was to blame – irrespective of the Politicians who were actually involved.

The only way out of this problem is to recognise Party boundaries and tribal loyalties as the ties that bind all of todays MPs to the politics of old. The old politics that the public are telling them is not only flawed but is fundamentally wrong.

Our Politicians must come together to deliver on the issues. And the issue which is the doorway to solving all other issues is Brexit – whether our Politicians like that fact or not.

The People Voted for the UK to Leave the EU without any deal or ties. Giving us anything less will simply be wrong. This includes coming out of the EU and then taking us immediately back in, whilst MPs then sell their ineptitude and lacklustre attempts at managing the Process as evidence that the whole thing was wrong.

The only Political Parties that have the ability to coagulate around the fact, reality and message that a full and proper Brexit must happen are the Brexit Party and the Conservative Party. And it is within the Conservative Party where the real struggle is still taking place, as it has been all along.

The new Conservative Prime Minister must accept and then immediately act on the fact that without a General Election and securing the Brexit MP Majority that it will give them if they ask for Public support in the right way, the future is effectively lost.

To realise and achieve the alternative – which is a real and permanent Brexit, there is no option for the next Conservative Party Leadership other than to swallow their pride for the greater good and work with the Brexit Party to establish a ‘Grand Brexit Coalition’.

Working together these Political Parties can provide that Brexit Majority and then ensure that our Brexit and the great future that follows it will for all of us be secure.

If they fail to do so, the future is very bleak. It is one that revolves around Corbyn and his Marxist tentacles reaching out and destroying everything we value from No.10.

The cost to everyone in this Country from allowing this to happen will go way beyond the destruction of the Conservative Party. It will simply be too high.

Isn’t it time the Conservative Leadership put the requirements of real Leadership first and did whatever necessary to get the job done?

 

image thanks to unknown

Yes Tories, by all means Prorogue Parliament, just so you can say you delivered a No Deal Brexit. But understand you will take us straight back in to the EU on terms of surrender if you do

May 4I’ve been a lapsed Tory for nearly six years. Like many others, I had been hopeful that with May finally going, the Party would get it’s shit together, react properly to the messages the Public have for many months been giving them. Then deal with Brexit properly and treat it as the door opening opportunity that it actually is, so that we would then at least have an incentive to start heading to the Party that we once called home.

Incredibly, whilst those messages from the Public are not only clear but getting louder all the time, the hustings for the Conservative Leadership campaign are giving us all the wrong answers to the questions that we all have and desperately want to know.

It is becoming regrettably very clear that the mentality at the top of the Conservative Party hasn’t yet changed in any way. That with May gone, this whole charade playing out in public is simply about a return to business as usual and taking for granted that to everyone outside Westminster, a change in Prime Minister is all it will take to solve everything that is wrong.

Many of us have fallen in to the trap of thinking that the country is run by very intelligent people.

But without feeling, understanding, empathy and yes – an ear to listen to the messages telling them that something is very wrong, these pretenders to the Seat once occupied by Churchill and Thatcher might all as well be crazy lunatics. Because that’s what their evolving plans are shouting at us as we look in on them from the outside.

Brexit is of course the most pressing issue that these would-be leaders are using as the benchmark to demonstrate their steel, stamina and resolve.

But like May who has gone into the post-Referendum premiership before them, they have not learned that the days when the message was all they needed to worry about have now gone.

It’s now all about substance, delivery and the action that will be taken over the many problems facing this Country of which Brexit is merely only one that is included, that will be the measure of them.

Imagine them now, in the committee rooms, restaurants and bars of Westminster, romancing their Conservative peers with stories of how will be for them all, once they can tell the Public that Brexit has been completed. That all the problems with Farage et al will simply fade and dissolve.

“The chosen method will be an exit from the EU by the 31st October – no matter the cost. We cannot have a General Election because even Boris could lose his seat. So if we simply shut down Parliament by proroguing it, we can have this whole mess sorted and stitched up within weeks. Simples!”

The problem is that proroguing Parliament tells us all that beneath the big talk about fulfilling the Public instruction for Brexit, the would-be leaders who are planning to pursue it really have no concept of what it is they really need to change.

Shutting down Parliament might well create a process that the Conservatives can tell everyone is a clean Brexit.

But with the same numbers and biases ever present in this very same Parliament that will be there to oversee what happens immediately afterwards, you can bet that with the first sign of issues or difficulties that are certain to follow, the majority of Remainer MPs who will still be present will then have a very large stick to hit the Government with.

They will be immediately equipped with what will easily be portrayed to the Public via a receptive media as legitimate fuel to blow up anything to do with Brexit.

They will push us straight back into the arms and Membership of what will then be a completely different and unrelenting EU.

It will be the Conservative Party that will be blamed for our permanent submission to an EU dictatorship, rather than being the only Party to deliver Brexit – as is even now still  being claimed.

Carrying on with the formula of the old politics which says it’s all about ‘telling the People what they want to hear’, is the surest pathway to end our Democracy. With it the Conservative Party and British Politics will surely explode.

There is something that all of these would-be Prime Ministers need to understand and act upon, if they really want our future to be stewarded forward with conservatism at the core of the leading political side:

May’s tenure and handling of Brexit represents a car crash for both the Conservative Party and the Country as a whole. Public Trust in Politics, Democracy and conservative values have been severely injured and won’t be healed just because we have a change of Prime Minister – no matter what they are told.

The only way that the Conservative Party can come through this mess and be able to stake a claim as a Party of Government for the future is to accept and fully embrace the process required of them for change.

Accept that they cannot push through a No Deal Brexit without the Parliamentary numbers in place to see the action through, and that to achieve this they will have to create and lead a Grand Brexit Coalition, made up with the Brexit Party and any Leave/New Politics Minded MPs who see the future as being about more than tribal politics and want to get fully involved.

Respect the reality that a New manifesto must be created that has as its basis a UK for the future, where the success and failure of everyone is a key to Government responsibility, that policy will be fully considered in terms of consequence and every decision taken will be based on the benefits to everyone – not simply those who are involved.

Embrace the need to then go back to the People and secure a new and endorsing mandate, to push through to the other side of a clean and proper Brexit and begin work on materialising the promise of the opportunities and our destiny that awaits us as the result of embracing A New Politics on the other side.

Without being big enough to rise up to the occasion, this Leadership Contest is only going to deliver more mistrust, dawdling, delay and anger – which is much the same as the legacy of Theresa May.

The MP who should be Leading us as our PM when we reach the Summer, should be the one who understands and accepts that you can try and spin words and terms like One Nation Conservatism as much as you like. But A New Politics is about more than one and We expect real Leadership that focuses on direction and doing things right, rather than paying lip service to it and mitigating all risks, because their biggest motivation is based not on anything positive but their personal fright.

 

The next Conservative PM will have to steer a difficult path to a ‘No Deal’ Brexit or they won’t stay in No.10 for very long

DTC Pic1Just like the question we were asked at the Ballot Box in the 2016 European Referendum, there is no halfway house when it comes to Brexit.

Once Brexit is done, the UK will have either Left the EU, or by default we Remain.

The complete mess and destruction of Parliamentary, Constitutional and Democratic processes that we have been watching from outside of the Westminster bubble for the past 3 years has proven that there is no fudge, compromise or middle pathway available.

If Democracy is to be respected, then restored, the only path that the UK can now take is to Leave the EU cleanly.

That means the UK Leaving the EU with No Deal. Without obligation to the EU or to any other Foreign Country. With our Independent and Sovereign Status as a Country fully restored.

Brexit has lifted the lid on everything dark that has been happening in British Politics for a very long time.

It has opened the door and created the circumstances where we can and are ready to step forward and not only Leave the EU. It also allows us to leave the old politics behind.

The junking of the Article 50 Process and the Hung Parliament that Theresa May ushered in has left very few options for a Government still working with the old politics.

This Government has been led by an indecisive and poor leadership team that still prioritises the security of MPs Seats at Westminster, rather than what they should be doing in all of our best interests.

If the Conservatives are to be the Party that delivers Brexit, they will first have to go back to the People and secure a majority of MPs that support Brexit.

That means a General Election this Autumn and before that, a series of steps that might well include an electoral pact with the Brexit Party in order to ensure that the next Government will finally be able to fully respect and secure the outcome of the original People’s Vote.

  1. Stop discussions or so-called negotiations with the EU. We have until 31st October before we have to go back and tell them what we are going to do.
  2. Create a new, inclusive and aspirational Manifesto. Involve everyone possible or engage people who can genuinely speak on behalf the many others to build a new platform for policy making that is about the best interests of everyone, so that we feel confident that we are witnessing the birth of A New Politics and we are sure that Government and MPs will now deliver on everything that they are supposed to.
  3. Build a Coalition based on delivering Brexit and then doing what’s right for us all Beyond. Be open to working with all Politicians who can demonstrate that they are committed to a ‘No Deal Brexit’ and will support the next Governmnet in any way that is required in order to get everything in place, address challenges responsibily and then keep driving on and through until Brexit has been secured and the work required as the basis for change thereafter has been done.
  4. Go to the People and ask them for the Mandate to deliver Brexit properly, so that we can begin to move forward and bridge the divide created by the animosity between Leave and Remain.
  5. With the Mandate secure, move clinicly and decisively to deliver a clean Brexit and then begin developing working relationships without obligation to the EU and all Countries across the whole World beyond.

With the options that this Conservative Government has open to it, this pathway is the only one they can follow if they genuinely intend to respect and implement the Brexit Vote.

Yes, there is a lot of risk to the MPs and their Parties involved.

But what they have been doing for the past three years has been all about protecting them, rather than our People, our Businesses and our Communities.

The time has come for the balance to shift and for the old politics to be stopped.

Delivering Brexit – in steps

Here are the steps that to achieve a proper Brexit this Government and the new Conservative Leader must take.

It’s no longer about them alone, and if they continue to think so, they will be making a terminal mistake:

1 Forget the EU 

Yes, counter-intuitive as it may seem, the EU is not and should not be considered as being important to the next steps and how the UK moves ahead. 

 
No, we don’t need to consult any further with them whilst we are sorting out the mess and if the right steps are taken as soon as the next Conservative PM has taken over, the time between now and 31st October could still be time enough. 
 
What those in a panic need to remember is that for the EU, a no deal Brexit will have far more negative consequences for them than it will for the UK – and that is why they have done everything possible to make it sound so tough. 
 
The EU will not allow a situation to arise where they would be seen to take responsibility for a no deal Brexit. 
 
It won’t work for them with any of their Member States and would destroy their advantage in the situation that they are hoping for which is that we Leave on a no deal whim and then go to them, cap in hand, and on their terms go straight back in. 

2  Build a Grand Brexit Coalition 

Delivering Brexit is a cross-Party issue. 

 
It is not one that any one Party can own. 
 
There isn’t one Party that can alone win a General Election with a working majority as things stand right now, and certainly not one that can command a majority of Brexit-backing MPs that will support whatever the steps are that will be necessary to get the job done. 
 
The Tories will have no choice but to embrace working with the Brexit Party to form an electoral Pact before holding a General Election, and on the basis of working together as a partnership in coalition Government when they have put together a formula and Manifesto that will go way beyond Brexit itself and get the Election won. 
 
This coalition must not be tied to old politics or political ideologies and there must be open arms to MPs who are committed to Brexit that currently sit with other Parties but accept that our future is no longer based on the tribal boundaries created by the Party System – its all about delivery for the People. 

3  A New Manifesto: A New Politics for All 

‘We know best’ is not a conversation. 

 
And it’s a conversation with the People and what comes from it that must now be had. 
 
Winning a General Election with the working majority that will support Brexit will not be achieved if the Political Parties involved will not embrace the need for change in politics that is now required and that everyone can now see. 
 
This winning manifesto must be about representing the needs of All Our People, not just those that are heard because they have their own voice. 
 
This inclusive manifesto must speak loudly about the realities that we all face in our lives today, be ambitious about the steps that will be taken to address them, but also realistic about the obstacles that will need to be addressed along the way. 
 
Above all, this, Our Manifesto must be very positive about Brexit and talk up the real benefits that will come for all of us, once Leaving the EU is done. 
 
The best of Our future will come from then focusing power back to the People properly, not paying lip service to what needs to be done. 
 
The People do not need to be sheltered from reality. 
 
Understanding what is wrong, how we are going to fix it and then how we are going to go forward together is how majority support from British People is going to be won. 

4  Getting the New Mandate

If Brexit is to be delivered and be the Doorway to Change that it really now can be, it is essential that it is done properly, is permanent and that there is no reason for us to take a backwards slide towards the EU from where we have come. 
 
With the right Manifesto, messages that show the direction that we are going, Leadership that inspires rather than concerns, and Confidence that all that our Politicians are telling us can be achieved because we are in control of our own destiny and not dependent upon world events, external influences or some other Foreign cause, the People will give the Mandate required to deliver Brexit and open up the doors to a whole lot more. 

5  The Brexit Government 

The New Government will be all about Brexit and what comes after. 

 
Its immediate priority will be getting on and getting Brexit done. 
 
This Government will go back to the EU and tell them We are going. That we are Leaving the EU without any negotiations, restrictions or obligations getting in the way. 
 
It will then be up to the EU to be reasonable and realistic about why a two-way dynamic relationship with the UK is as important if not more so for them, and that they have to decide if they want pettiness to get in the way. 
 
To the World our borders MUST be open to every kind of trade that doesn’t undermine our own production and manufacturing abilities, the provision of services that we are good at and what we need to have in place to be safe, secure and confident of our place.
 
Above all, this Government will be about action and not just talking. Without the restrictions of being an EU Member, we will be able to change, modify and create rules, regulations and laws that will allow Our Country, Our Communities, Our Industries, Our People to develop, grow, thrive and be happy with our place in the World.

Brexit: What must happen

We’ve heard lots of suggestions, plans and strategies for ‘delivering Brexit’ or ‘getting Brexit done’.

But right from the start, after We Voted to Leave without any ties, MPs and those with influence within the Establishment have done everything possible to confuse and complicate what should have been a straightforward process. That is if everything that should have been done by the Politicians and Civil Servants had been done when and as was necessary.
They didn’t.
And thinking – or rather anticipating or inventing the worst outcomes possible from Brexit and Leaving the EU has become for them, the order of the day.
The meddling that has taken place, whether it has been to create the narrative that the UK cannot Leave the EU without a Deal, to call the 2017 General Election to improve a majority that achieved a result that went the other way, or to negotiate without legitimate purpose, this has all contributed to a complicated mess that we now need great leadership to get us out of.
Putting a meaningful Brexit back on track and saving British Democracy in the process is no mean feat with all the crap that is now spread out in the way.
The delay, or rather inaction that has been caused by the ineptitude and fear of Conservative MPs, supported by MPs from other Political Parties, has already compounded the challenge of having a sensible and timely dialogue with the EU, as the next ‘deadline’ for Leaving the EU starts to appear out of the Brexit fog.
Part of Theresa May’s legacy was to set up a deal with the EU which is so good for them – with all the politics involved, that there really isn’t a way back to find a position which as a compromise deal – such as the removal of the now infamous Northern Ireland Backstop – would be acceptable for everyone involved in the debate over Leave vs. Remain.
The truth is that a good leader going into Downing Street after David Cameron who had intended to do what the People has instructed, would have embraced the fact that the stepping off point for Leaving the EU was always a clean or no deal Brexit, rather than looking backwards and prioritising anything that the EU wants.
Whilst many MPs have accepted this, there is a dangerous reality to the circumstances that Parliament is now in.
 With the balance of MPs still being Remain-led and the same ones that have done everything to help frustrate Brexit all the way along being present, the no deal Brexit that the Conservative Leadership hopefuls have been touting – literally just by dropping out or by proroguing Parliament to make it happen by October – is almost certain to end with the whole Exit from the EU thing going very wrong.
MPs on the Conservative benches still don’t accept that the problem is so much more than being just about Brexit. That things won’t just go back to being the same as they always were just as soon as the next PM steps out in front of the Cameras in Downing Street and tells the World that ‘Brexit is done’.
Brexit has to be completed meaningfully and secured as the default position for the future of the UK too. Even with a clean or no deal Exit, that means thinking everything through.
‘Crashing out’, as some people call it, without doing anything other than changing Prime Minister before we do is the easy way rather than the right way. And for the Conservatives it doesn’t end in a win.
From the moment that we Officially Leave or have Left the EU, there are current MPs and other people of influence who will be shining a very bright light on everything that we as a Country then do.
There will be challenges to face and stories that follow in the media that will be unsettling for many and used to play on the fears of us all.
There will be a very clear and apparently credible message that we should never have contemplated Brexit and that we can only survive if we return to being a full and completely committed Member of the EU.
It won’t matter how ridiculous the claims and fear mongering will be. It will certainly be compelling, but with this Parliament left untouched, compelling will be all it needs to be to see us quickly returned to the EU.
And make no mistake, that return will be on very punitive terms or terms of surrender that will only become apparent to everyone outside Government when what we lose as the result has then become a problem too big to easily be solved.
Although we shouldn’t have to – because any MP is a public representative and should automatically do what the People have instructed and therefore want – it is imperative that we have a General Election and that we Elect a Parliament full of MPs that will not only deliver Brexit, but will take all the steps necessary to make it permanent.
That means supporting the Government to do whatever is necessary to get us through to the other side of any post-Leaving storm.
With the Conservatives still clinging to the shell of their Party wreckage and the idea that Brexit is still something that they alone can own, we are set to have massive problems.
The Political Party structure is now so flawed, that it will be impossible to do Brexit properly AND make it stick, if they continue to work alone.
Brexit and our future beyond it is so much bigger and better than anything that can be defined by loyalty to any party political divide.
If our MPs are serious about doing as they have been instructed and is required by the People, they must now put Brexit and what comes after it before anything, and sweep the corrosive old politics that is all about them and their Party, quickly to one side.