Tag: old politics

Letwin behaves like a complete tool most of the time. But for all the wrong reasons he might just have thrown the right spanner into the Brexit works

The Remain-collective-Opposition have had the monopoly on being the EU’s useful idiots for many months. That was until Boris cane back with a deal that may sound different to May’s version, but is a sell out just the same.

The glad handing emanating from Westminster over Boris’ apparent ‘achievement’ is very loud and has been coming at us from almost every direction.

With even the ERG Group on board, you will be forgiven for believing that Boris’ deal is – in Brexit terms – the real thing.

Boris’ deal isn’t Brexit.

Boris’ deal will not be Brexit.

It is now clear that Boris’ deal was never going to be Brexit.

And Boris’ deal is the straw that will finally break the camels back of democracy in this Country – that is if it should be put to a vote and it wins.

So as those who are not trying to short cut the requirements of the Brexit that the British People Voted for will know, we find ourselves in the rather strange position of being thankful that the Letwin Amendment has passed in Parliament on Saturday by 322 votes to 306.

Thankful becuase Remainers in their fervour to try and control Brexit so it can itself be stopped, may have taken the biggest step to stopping yet another so-called deal from going through that is Brexit in name only. One that is ironically no better, if not worse than Remain.

Most regrettably, Boris has now tied his true colours to the mast.

It is not what many of us had hoped.

Boris is not a genuine Leaver nor Brexiteer.

He does not adhere to the principles of democracy.

He is only looking for ways to shore up his own position and to secure the legacy that like May before him he now so desperately craves.

Boris is as bad as the rest of the MPs around him. He is not the agent of change and the herald of a new politics that we have been waiting for. Boris is the champion of the politics of old.

We do not know how things will progress or how events will unfold in the coming days and weeks ahead.

For however long we remain under the leadership of any of these selfish and self serving MPs, it would be better for us to stay at a Parliamentary standstill, rather than for either of these self-serving ‘sides’ to succeed in pushing through what will be a completely bogus Brexit deal – either way.

We will not have the Brexit that we voted for until we have a very different type and quality of politicians in power in this Country. We are now desperate for top-to-bottom reform.

Until we have it, it will surely be a good thing if any action that has will get us to the right place in the end takes place, even if the wrong reasons for the politicians doing so have been involved.

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If supporters of democracy and Leaving the EU are ready to donate, let’s skip any protest that will fall on deaf ears and go straight to being the change that the UK needs

img_4318As we look at the days and weeks ahead, no one can be sure what further twists and turns we will experience in the events that surround the Brexit process.

What we can be sure of however, is that nothing in British Politics is ever going to be the same again.

Unbelievable as it might seem to the many millions of us who have become captive spectators of the ridiculous shitshow that our Parliamentarians have been acting out now for some 40 months, the majority of our elected MPs continue to believe that contrary to all the principles of democracy, Brexit can be stopped and forgotten, and that they have some kind of mandate that justifies any action that they take to get this done.

The events that have led to a situation where we have a wilful majority of MPs squatting in Parliament that contradicts the will of the People and the instruction that they have democratically been given is pretty much the perfect political storm. One that has been created by inept self-serving politicians looking to preserve their own power; taken forward to the point of destroying British Democracy whilst they disloyally sell out their own Country to a Foreign Power under the auspices of Remain.

We may never know if David Cameron and Nick Clegg would have dealt with their need to create the Fixed Term Parliaments Act differently, had they known exactly what was to come.

Reality is that with the exquisite mix that is a hung parliament, filled with politicians who have no integrity or responsibility towards the People who elected them, all puffed up like a gargantuan peacock using the FTPA like a life-preserving crutch – we have what we can only hope will be an historically unique situation. One where resolving and clearing up all of this dreadful mess will only be achieved when we have politicians running this Country who can and will always do the right thing.

Sadly and most regrettably, politicians of this calibre and nature do not exist en masse in this Parliament today. If they did, we would never have found ourselves in the circumstances that we are currently in right now.

Whether the MP that you would normally Vote for or aim to see elected in the Constituency where you live would be Conservative, DUP, Labour, Lib Dem, SNP, Plaid or even from the Brexit Party, none of the Parties that they are loyal to are equipped, have the intention or have the policies in place (or the will to create them) to look at everyone and everything across this Country and then behave not as if they are acting out their own fantasies in a parallel universe, but are in touch with what we all need to see, feel and experience. Basically making clear that they are with us all in exactly the same room.

With all of this madness going on since the European Referendum Vote in 2016, it was perhaps inevitable that sooner or later the discussion amongst those who support Leaving the EU – even if just to respect the concept of democracy – would move to suggestions of protest and even civil disorder. All in the hope that action of this kind would change the minds of those who are misusing their power and the responsibilities of their Office to coercively overturn Brexit and bolt us into a permanent form of Remain.

It won’t.

Not because the argument that we have and share isn’t justified, right and legitimate. But because the people who have their hands on the levers of power and are therefore at the controls of this chaos are not.

Events are not under anyones control. Once each and every decision has been made, the consequences and the events that will subsequently follow are always out of the hands of the decision makers – no matter what they might have us believe or what we have already been told.

As such it remains possible something that Boris Johnson is doing already or is about to do will end up having the required result.

However, I like many others cannot say that I feel hopeful.

With this Remain-collective-Opposition running the Country, behaving like some giant snake attached to the tail of a very small dog, there is as much chance if not more that we could have this same zombie Parliament until the early Summer of 2022 as there is that we will have the General Election that we are all waiting for anytime soon.

When the next General Election does come – whether its this Autumn or in around 30 months time – without having change in the kind of politicians that we have and are able to elect, nothing will really change for any of us who are on the receiving end of all that they do.

Whilst the faces might look different, the way that broken politics has failed to represent us properly in this Country for decades, will simply continue onwards just the same.

At the time of a National crisis – which is precisely what we are now in, it is difficult to imagine engaging in any process that does not appear to offer an instant solution and a remedy for all those involved.

Yet if we don not start to think differently about the cause of all these problems we are having and how all these issues would actually be resolved today, as we look forward when we get to that place tomorrow, we will only be regretful when we get there and realise that nothing in our relationship with government will have actually changed.

The change we want and the change we need is not a change that will resemble anything that any of these Political Parties are telling us that they will do.

Yes, we must Leave the EU cleanly. But Brexit – in terms of our future – is just the symbolic act of opening the door.

So if we now back any of these proponents of the old politics, which is all about them and not about us – no matter what it is that they now say, all we will be doing is endorsing candidates and politicians who once elected will still resemble the politicians that we have got already in every meaningful way.

If there is the money, support and the will to do everything that is now necessary in order that the UK can take control of its own future and destiny AND do all that is best for our People whilst bringing democracy back in from the cold, we should together be seeking to create a new movement for change and with it a political party that reaches across all parts of the political divide.

Whether Left or Right, Leave or Remain, it’s what we have in common between all of us that should be dictating the public policies and the choices we make to create our future.

We must do everything necessary to remove bias and any form of manipulative behaviour from politics that prevents equanimity of government. We need leadership and power that values each and every one of us the same.

Together we have the power that can achieve this change if we can discover the collective will to do it.

But it will not happen if we sit back and believe that someone else is going to step in and make the difference.

If we as individuals, together as communities and being one as a Country want things to really be different in the UK now and for the future, each of us must step up and be the change.

 

 

Events this week have ensured Boris will only win the General Election on a ‘no deal’ ticket. Conservative MPs who believe otherwise should step aside

GE2019Good leaders cannot be all things to all people. In fact, the best leaders don’t even try.

Boris enters a danger zone every time he flirts with the concept of One Nation Conservatism. But has found a winning formula with ‘lets get Brexit done’.

It is on the basis of focusing purely on getting Brexit done and making it stick, that for the Conservatives – in all likelihood with the help of Nigel Farage and the Brexit Party – the upcoming General Election will be won.

After more than three years of this woeful Brexit process and in particular the events that have transpired this week, it should be realistic for voters in this Country to be able to expect that MPs on all sides of Parliament would now accept that there were only two choices when the question of Leaving the EU was put to the People. And that when the People were asked about our future relationship, the People Voted to Leave.

Strange as it might therefore seem, for a number of Conservative MPs this certainly isn’t a view that they share with the Voting Public, and they are apparently up in arms about the prospect of a Conservative General Election Manifesto that is based on a clean or purist ‘no deal’ Brexit alone.

There is not, will not be and never has been a halfway house or middle way with Brexit.

This truth has been confirmed and clarified by Angela Merkel this week.

For any MP to stand against the will of the majority of the People on the basis that they personally want to Remain, when it is now clear that the only way the UK can actually Leave the EU is to do so cleanly without a so-called ‘deal’ is not only undemocratic. It is disingenuous in the extreme.

The only way that the Conservative Party can now survive the process of destruction that is underway within our political system, is to become the Party that will deliver that clinical form of Brexit and be open to the opportunities for meaningful reform that will come next, based upon moving on determinedly from the old politics and broken ideologies that serve political parties, but not the People anymore.

To achieve this, Boris, his Party and his MPs will have to look favourably upon help from the Brexit Party and shed any Conservative Candidate – whether a current MP or other – who believes that Brexit can be delivered without the complete separation of the UK from the EU, and therefore continuing to play a three-year-plus-and-counting game of pin the tail on the donkey somewhere in between.

People are not only fed up with but completely bewildered by the behaviour of our MPs, their disregard for democracy and their continuing attempts to overturn Brexit.

We will all be grateful for true leadership that takes us out of the EU and recognises that Brexit is just the doorway to where real and meaningful reform of government and the political system in this Country begins.

There is no place for MPs and politicians in the UK’s future who cannot move on and accept that it’s time to leave the selfishness and self-serving behaviour of the old politics behind.

 

Boris’ audacity might just win a majority. But with many of the same MPs returning, it will not be enough to get Brexit done

We are no longer a Country run by democracy. Today we are a land where anything goes.

Any politician left in Parliament today who intends to do whatever they genuinely can to uphold any principle of democracy and to deliver Brexit, must now realise that the rules have changed significantly. That to survive in the long term, they themselves will have to change – that is, if they can.

The shibboleths of the old politics are no longer acceptable to the British People. They have gone for good.

And so our Prime Minister Boris Johnson is faced with some stark realities. Realities that he cannot expect to dodge.

That is if he intends to see a proper Brexit delivered. Then open the doors to the opportunities that lie beyond that have the power to bring this Country such good.

Whilst few of us are openly prepared to talk about it, there is a stark reality now at work.

A storm cloud is brewing around everything to do with government in this Country. How politicians are elected. How they should be qualified and their motives tested. How we can ensure that the people elected to represent us will do the job that was intended. How we make sure that self interest holding the levers of power is history and no longer continues to be the norm.

The leap from where we now stand to a reasoned political future can sound very simple. But when we still have a Parliament that is overpopulated by MPs who want to frustrate Brexit and maintain what to them has been a highly beneficial status quo, the realisation will have to soon dawn for us all and not least of all Boris Johnson, that focusing on delivering upon the task in hand is the first and only step that must immediately be taken.

Plans and grand strategies for politicians to take the steps now to secure their power after this, that and just about anything else has happened in the future, simply now have to be put on hold.

Brexit offers the significant opportunity that we have been waiting for, to put so many of the things that have been going wrong in this Country right.

But to do so, the Government that leads us as we Leave the EU must not only ensure that the UK Leaves without any restrictive deal, strings or ties; they must also be able to keep everything moving in the right direction. Until turbulence and the challenges that we will face as we take control of our own destiny have come to a clear end.

Regrettably, the political party model that we currently have, the dynamic in parliament and the impact of what the Remain-collective-opposition has done has ensured – not even with polls moving significantly towards Boris and ‘No Deal’ – that no one can be sure of the result when the General Election comes.

The problem isn’t just about winning seats. It’s both the number of seats and the propriety of the politicians involved.

And because many of the same politicians that are responsible for many of the problems this Country is facing right now – that only include Brexit – are seeking to return, we cannot be sure that the change for the better will come or even be possible after the General Eection, unless an unwavering commitment to a genuine no deal Brexit and all steps necessary to achieving it are now made and the decks cleared to ensure that it is delivered for everyone.

Boris and the team around him – despite the audacity of the approach they have employed – cannot guarantee that the General Election can be won with the Brexit Party still in play.

SPOILER ALERT: The Brexit Party is not going away.

The dynamic of the demographics that support both the revitalised ‘leave’ Conservative Party under Boris and the Brexit Party are different enough that if they exist on a Ballot paper as alternative options for Leave Voters in enough Parliamentary Seats, there is no way that either Party can actually win.

Boris is doing an excellent job of trying to be more Brexit than the Brexit Party. But the Brexit Party currently possesses a demographic that will remain loyal to Nigel Farage and the purist option, simply because without the Brexit Party support or endorsement, supporting the Conservatives in any form simply has too many risks for them involved.

Brexiteers are either heads, hearts or floating voters.

The heads follow the Tories.

The Brexit Party and Nigel Farage are supported by the hearts.

The significant number of Leave supporters that float between will on Election Day put a cross in the box against the name of the Party they think most likely to get the result. To get Brexit delivered. To get Brexit done.

Because of the nature of the situation we are now in, the choice that Boris has is to either cling to the wreckage of what he hoped would be the Johnson era of Conservative Glory and go down in flames with the rest of the Country. Or take the practical step of joining up with the Brexit Party in an electoral pact that can win the General Election whilst demonstrating a very different kind of leadership. So that the will is thereafter present in Parliament to whether the storm through our departure and then clear the decks for the new politics that must now begin.

This is a far from perfect situation. There are arguably very good reasons not to want the Brexit Party involved.

Boris and his Conservative Brexiteers can refuse to understand and accept that it is the utilisation of what all Leavers have in common that will equip him with everything that today he doesn’t have.

But if they do so, they must also then accept that the alternative is to be stitched up by this Remain-collective-opposition and that they will watch from the opposition benches as it emerges from the General Election with nothing less than what was an avoidable endorsement that they will sell to the public as being legitimacy. Ready and willing to weld us into the EU forever as they sweep away any ideas of real democracy every being returned to the UK aside.

Many are impressed by your leadership so far Boris. You are beginning to make the Remain-collective-opposition convulse and shake. But if you really want to get Brexit done and deliver for the People, you need to work with Farage to give us that break. 

It’s time to take that leap of faith.

 

 

 

The Lib Dems could be about to make Labour irrelevant. But polarising the Brexit debate by promising to scrap it would mean victory in the next General Election is a very hollow win

Jo Swinson might be annoying the hell out of Brexiteers and the right alike, but it’s her friends across the opposition benches in Parliament who are now most in fear that her new energy and approach could be about to throw them back into the electoral bin.

Some startling parallels have been made between the new Liberal Democrats Leader and the approach of Nigel Farage.

But beyond the fact that they have now positioned themselves outwardly at the polar opposites of the Brexit debate, there is something very different in the motivation that underpins the reasons why these two politicians are pushing a narrative that sounds confident, as if these two political parties are on the verge of a breakthrough win.

Spoiler alert: It’s only about Brexit for one of them and always has been.

We are experiencing an endgame in politics right now. A watershed moment that is being drawn out into a long and painful period of transition.

Yet the players on the political board don’t even know that the rules of the game around them have adjusted already and continue to be in the process of fundamental change.

Farage and the Brexit Party have become a voice of the heralds of change. What defines them is their riding the truths that are the foundation of Brexit, using them to wrap their collective’s crusade. The vein of truth that gives a feeling of legitimacy to their cause.

Yet as a political force the Brexit Party represents the very same things that are wrong with all the politicians we have in office as MPs right now. Their MEPs in the public eye are media savvy, obsessed with getting a hard-hitting narrative out there that ‘connects’ with the electorate, but nonetheless suffer with a lack of real empathy and understanding of the whole spectrum of issues and experiences that people have both beyond and including Brexit. 

Beyond Brexit itself, these are not the people who are equipped to actually get things done.

But Jo Swinson and her Liberal Democrats are playing the very same game as Farage. Only the way that they are playing on this field is very cynical and potentially much worse. As they do not recognise nor attempt to acknowledge in any way what Brexit represents or what the Brexit debate is really about.

For the ambitious Leader of this now apparently revitalised Political Party, the current Parliamentary mess and the chaos that surrounds it is a political opportunity to exploit that could result in real power for them.

That’s their primary aim. But it’s clearly a case of bugger the consequences of what might be involved along the way.

At its best, power for the Liberal Democrats would come at a high price for everyone. Even those who are intricately involved.

The unyielding commitment to the EU that they would deliver, beyond being a massive democratic betrayal and surrender all-in-one, would also create obstacles to us ever Leaving the bloc or attempting to do so. Everything that defines us as a Nation State, our defining characteristics and the ties that bind us would be systematically, progressively and deliberately eroded away by laws, rules and regulations that nobody is aware of until it is far too late.

The process of liberally democratic change would be no doubt accelerated no doubt my the implementation of so called electoral reform and the switch from First Past The Post (FPTP) to a Proportional Representation regime. One that favours small political parties that appear to be unfairly place or unelectable under FPTP, but by its very nature will make what we have been experiencing since the European Referendum in terms of a stalemate in Parliament – pretty much the norm. 

And all that is what happens just as a start, if everyone – including the 17.4 million voters and the others who now support Brexit and Leaving the EU were to just roll over and accept what under a Jo Swinson government was about to come.

The reality is that they wouldn’t.

And as far fetched to our cosseted and complacent society as it may seem, civil unrest and what might follow it would soon blow the lid off the lie that is neither a liberal nor democratic party, and show us what the self interest, selfishness and ignorance that underpins politicians that are obsessed with power tangibly means.

But what Swinson, Farage and all of the incumbent MPs and those that facilitate them today must realise is that the politics of old, which is there to serve only that which they choose is now over.

It began to die the very moment that the decision over EU Membership was tossed back to the people and Jo Swinson represents the death throws of all that is wrong and is rotten with our politics as she demonstrates how this broken politics is about nothing more than doing absolutely everything and anything to win.

We are all waiting for a new politics to begin. These politicians and their ideas will have to go or at the very least change definitively if our democracy is ever again to be capable of experiencing a win.

 

 

A New Politics

getting-startedA New Politics is something that I have referenced as a term increasingly in my recent Blogs. Just as I have also referred to the ‘Old Politics’ as a term to reference the no longer acceptable form of doing political business which is currently best illustrated by the behaviour of Theresa May, along with the Parliamentary Conservative Party that immediately surrounds her.

Everything that the Conservatives have been doing shows increasing signs that they believe they will be able to return to this approach, repackaged by terms such as ‘One Nation Conservatism’ just as soon as she has gone.

A New Politics is something I have been alluding to, if not using that precise term, for a long while. Just without referencing it in this specific form of words.

A New Politics is also a term that it being discussed more frequently in the media. It was mentioned by the former Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks in his interview with Emily Maitlis on BBC Newsnight on Wednesday evening. Albeit as part of an insightful and frank analysis of the current state of British Politics where like with most examples of its use, he described A New Politics in terms of a location that comes after Brexit has been concluded, rather than offering any idea what it will look like and how it will actually work.

I have been happily tapping away at the keys on my laptop, mentioning ‘A New Politics’ as if it is already a tangible fact and is present a modus operandi, as a manifesto or some other universally accepted term. Of course it is not, and I was reminded of this by a comment posted to my Blog yesterday which specifically requested that I explain what A New Politics is.

So I will attempt to give what A New Politics is to me. What it looks like and how it would work and evolve in greater form.

A new politics is about changing the way that politicians and the people who aspire to be politicians think.

It is about application. It is fundamentally a way of being a politician and conducting politics as a vocation or calling, rather than viewing it as simply a job, career pathway or method of ‘getting on’, which is nothing like the same thing.

It sounds simple at first look. But the reality is that it is anything but simple and is not just about political reform.

Politicians today rarely have the level of awareness of self or of the community, social, business and government environment in which they operate either to look critically within themselves and at what they are doing. Nor do they have the desire or motivation to acquire the skills that will enable them to understand the interaction required of them better.

The Party Political system has reached a stage in its evolution and the management and environmental conditioning of political candidates and frontline members where it is now normal for those taking on elected roles to assume that all problems are external to them and that addressing ‘problems’ external to them is the way that each and every problem is solved.

Because of this external locus in politics, there is a lot of talk about things like changing the Electoral System to PR from First Past The Post and a second Referendum on the Brexit question. It is most notably present in the angry behaviour that is present in the continuing diatribe over Leave vs. Remain and who is – or was- actually right.

But change to our Political System resulting from blame attribution and the change the People are now seeking in Politics are simply not the same thing.

A New Politics must be something that is lived and not only treated as an idea or vision by those who are intricately involved.

It is about the example of good politicians at the top of Government influencing by example.

Of Politicians doing what is right for everyone. Considering the consequences of their decisions not just for those immediately effected. But like the ripple effect upon every part of a widened supply chain for a complex product. It is about considering and working fairly and proportionately for all of those who will be impacted beyond.

A New Politics is the leadership of taking hard, and where necessary unpopular decisions.

Politicians have the responsibility to look up to and beyond the horizon, and be cognizant of everything. Not just that which is obvious or placed in immediate view. They have to be both mindful and respectful of the possibilities and influences that inhabit the ground in-between.

Above all, it’s about seeing an Elected Term as the only opportunity to get things done. Rather than being just a term to secure the result of the next election. And I say this with no intentional hint of irony, given that working hard without fear or emotional tie in to the outcome, is likely to result in the very same thing.

Without repeating a great deal that I have already published, that is about the simplest way to describe what I offer that A New Politics would actually be.

Whilst the reality is that it is exactly what all of our Politicians should now and always have been doing – as it should be for the younger generations yet to come, for some or those with a more kindly interpretation or view of one of the few hard working Politicians that do exist, it may already be their experience and as such not be new at all.

We will have A New Politics when it is effectively the same experience of Politics for everyone.

If you would like to read about my view of A New Politics in more detail and how it would actually begin and then work, I talked about the way to get the ball rolling in Wednesday’s Blog.

I have also written a Book for Kindle that is a guide for people considering entering Politics with the intention of doing the whole thing properly. It’s called How to get Elected and you can read it FREE by clicking HERE, or purchase and download the Book for Kindle HERE.

I also wrote Mutual Aims which is A New Politics outlined as a very basic Political Philosophy in an essay form. Mutual Aims is FREE to read HERE or can be purchased and downloaded as a Book for Kindle HERE.

 

 

image thanks to unknown

 

Catastrophic indecision lies at the heart of this Government and the Conservative Party. Yet most of those responsible are on the list to replace Mrs May

MAYTime is now up for Trident Tongued Theresa.

Yet even now, she and her coterie of friends who will be leaving Downing Street beside her, are attempting to steal victory from the large intestine of defeat and suggesting they are about to rewrite this travesty of a Withdrawal Agreement which is and only ever has been about what a Prime Ministerial legacy looks like to Theresa May.

The credibility of our system of Government could and indeed should have been saved weeks if not months ago.

There have been enough opportunities to actually lose count.

Yet it is the same Politicians in the Cabinet and in key Positions within the Government who are too fearful today of the consequences of doing the ‘wrong thing’, who have always enabled this treacherous travesty which is not only about to unseat the Prime Minister, but is about to send the whole of the Conservative Party exactly the same way.

What our supposedly responsible Politicians should have reallised long ago about the current key holder at No.10, is that the dictatorial retreat into the bunker that is underway at the moment is simply an illustration of the character which has underpinned this travesty of a Premiership from the start and all the way along.

May’s propensity for lying robustly was outed well before she even called the 2017 General Election. At the very moment she wouldn’t come clean over the Trident issue, when questioned in an interview by the BBC’s Andrew Marr.

That none of those so closely around her saw or understood the writing that was then on the wall, raises questions about the rot that is present at the heart of both the Conservative Party and the Government.

But it also explains a whole lot more. Because it tells us how this whole sorry episode has been facilitated and allowed to continue. Be under the illusion no longer. May’s pedigree chums who remain in the Cabinet have an outlook that is fundamentally the same.

With the rules and etiquette underpinning business as usual in Politics having disappeared into the ether, just as soon as the Conservative Party endorsed this wretched Premiership in December, there really are no obligations to the Old Politics remaining upon any of our Westminster incumbents if they should finally grow a pair and do whatever it will take to immediately remove Theresa May from No.10.

In fact, it might be received much more positively than they could ever now appreciate. As anything that heralds the end of that Old Politics and the ushering in of the new, is likely to be received very warmly by the Public, who today might only temporarily directing their Votes another way.

Replacing May with another Prime Minister in her image is unacceptable.

If would-be Conservative Leaders should tie themselves to the mast of the Old Politics in the form of One Nation Conservatism or any form of everything that is now wrong with our Political system, simply presented in a different form, the Conservative Party will simply be over. And with it all of the sorry attempts by self-serving MPs to keep a secure hold of ‘their’ Seats, without even the slightest idea of the impact and consequences of what they have been doing.

What we are seeing today in the political crisis that is unfolding which is going to have an unnecessary but nonetheless significant cost.

Today’s Tory Leaders simply have no credibility.

To win again the Party must embrace change in everything. Immediately and above all ruthlessly. Or the post-bunker chapter will be the only legacy that they will share with Theresa May.

If Conservative MPs at any level have any sense they will have her physically out of No.10 by the weekend and then take a leaf out of the Vatican’s book. Put aside all the petty squabbling and self-serving rivalries, lock all of their MPs into the same room. And don’t emerge until they have a reasoned majority for a new Leader who can go straight to Buckingham Palace to be appointed Prime Minister, as the white smoke drifts across Westminster and media’s way.

Many of us question why these apparently talented and otherwise responsible people cannot see just how serious things have now become.

The reality is that they must now within days change completely, embrace new thinking, a new politics and then the real and true instruction of the Brexit Vote via a General Election in the Autumn.

They must begin today by hitting the ejector switch for Mrs May.

No Chancellor, it’s not hijacking Brexit when the People are taking back from you what we already own

MANDATE 1Two days out from the European Elections on Thursday and fear is back on the menu for those behind the Brexit crisis as they desperately attempt to regain some control.

Suggesting that ‘Populism’ is hijacking Brexit sadly says a lot more about the bubble that the politicians who have been running our Country are living in, rather than anything we should take as any form of appropriate or informed analysis about the ingredients that could be about to lead to a substantial Brexit Party win.

This approach has become a trademark gesture of those Politicians who still believe that the UK will continue to be ruled after Brexit by their exiting ‘Old Politics’ world.

That they attempt to again soil and pour scorn upon the reality of a democratic uprising by casting out and blackening the names, identities and views of a majority of Voters is only going to fuel the growing hatred and contempt of the Public for this ‘we know what’s best for everyone’ and ‘me, me, me’ form of Politics. The outgoing order, where the majority of this political class consider themselves to rule by some twisted kind of divine right.

They forget that they relinquished the right to continue with their own selfish ideas and stupidity, when they tossed over the decision over Leaving the EU to the People. Yes, David Cameron might have driven it, but these are the self-same, self-serving, self-righteous Politicians that supported him then who have since and are now involved.

Whatever kind of spin these proponents of the ‘Old Politics’ use as their argument against the democratic choice of the People to Leave the EU, history tells us that when the results of other elections have suited them and their purposes, they have never had reason to question the legitimacy of our decision and the way that it was formulated and then made.

The European Referendum of 23rd June 2016 was based on a tried and tested binary question, legitimately agreed and endorsed by our Country’s Regulatory Processes. It was not loaded or misleading and it certainly was not a multiple choice list of ways we could Leave the EU like the one that our busted flush politicians have tried presenting in Parliament since, like Brexit presented in 50 different shades.

Just as we, the Public have to own our choices when we appoint a new Government, we are right and justified to expect the choice we made for a clean and proper Brexit to be honoured both materially and in spirit, and given time to demonstrate all that will be different BEFORE any attempts at a review of OUR DECISION is ever made.

The fact is that We the People made the choice to Leave the EU.

You, who We trusted and Elected to represent us as our Politicians have done nothing less than attempt to steal OUR BREXIT. You have done this for reasons no better than self-interest, your fear and therefore your unsuitability to continue in roles that have much loftier levels of responsibility and justifiable expectation than you were clearly ever cut out for.

We cannot hijack Brexit.

Because Brexit was never and will never be yours.

Brexit is the Will of the People.

Brexit is therefore ours.

And Brexit will be properly delivered by a new Government. Whether that Government is made up of existing Politicians who have put their hands up and are prepared to think differently, or by one driven by the populism that you hate. A Government that will without doubt have the qualities that most of you seem sadly to lack within this one. That’s the best of intentions towards the Electorate – irrespective of whether they may or may not have any flaws.

One Nation Conservatism and the Old Politics are the same thing. It’s a horse that won’t run now the Brexit stone has been lifted and Voters are looking for something that works and is actually new

After Brexit

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.

I’m as big a Brexiteer as anyone, but I won’t be voting for the Brexit Party or anyone else next week and here’s why…

images-6They 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.

 

image thanks to unknown

No Tories, you can’t all be the next Prime Minister. Lose the selfish ambition and unite behind a Brexiteer who can win a General Election within 6 months instead

Dream

So the Tory beauty pageant is already underway and the starting pistol hasn’t even been fired – yet.

They have already attracted ridicule by openly declaring their ambition to become the next Prime Minister and even introduced wives to the media in anticipation that the Tories are finally set to decapitate the premiership of Theresa May.

In coming into the open as they have, these self-proclaimed leadership candidates demonstrate a clear detachment from the reality of the mess the Tory Party has already caused. A mess that is the result of politicians exhibiting the very same self-serving behaviour as they are. Apparently plain for everyone to see but they themselves.

At a time when MPs have never been needed to be more in touch with the Public mood and the implications of what is happening in government and the Country as a whole as part of a growing and already epic political storm, this evolving list of suicidedly ambitious MPs are exhibiting themselves, their true motives and their real priorities as elected representatives for all that they are and what they intend them to be.

The People will no longer be fooled. Even the mere hint that so many MPs plan to make their intentions known will be understood as self-servingly opportunistic, rather than being about doing what’s genuinely best in the circumstances for the Country and for the futures of everyone.

There is no illusion amongst those outside of Westminster. This is nothing to do with doing everything necessary to get the Brexit crisis resolved and democracy fully and unequivocally restored.

The approach now shared by so many ‘senior’ Conservatives is stretching the realms of what is now acceptable, irrespective of whether it is a genuine bid to lead, or just secure another term in a plum job.

This circus in no way represents the public interest. It only represents the interests of the politicians involved.

The support that the Brexit Party has already secured and continues to generate shows us all very clearly that Voters want to look forward, not backwards.

That means an increasingly dim view will be taken by the Public of actions reflective of the ‘Old Politics’.

There is now an open desire for ALL politicians to embrace the change that is required as politics moves from the old to the new, and that above all, any would-be Prime Minister MUST accept that this change is now irreversibly involved.

The list now in circulation of those declaring their candidacy includes a number of very talented individuals. But leading the Country out of what is becoming a significant crisis is far from being about talent alone.

In the long term, leading this Country will require a mix of skills, experience, wherewithal, approach and vision that may not come from any candidate, current MP or even a figure who is already publicly known.

This means that by default, the best thing that all of these MPs could do to help resolve and reduce the gravity of this escalating situation, is to be realistic. They must put their personal ambitions aside, instead sharing and pursuing ambition for us all. They must be willing to take things step by step, uniting behind one candidate and one candidate alone, so that the Conservatives can do all that is necessary to change the dynamic in Westminster to one which gives a workable majority and the ingredients necessary for the delivery of a Brexit that we will all ultimately be happy to own.

A drawn-out Leadership contest will not be good for the Country. It will do nothing to support the resolution of Brexit.

Above all, a drawn-out Leadership battle will delay the opportunity to change anything before the Autumn. Something likely to play very well in to May’s plan both for her stay in No.10 and making a Remain-based Brexit more likely. As more and more issues arising with the EU over the question of further delays will inevitably be involved.

No. If the present occupant of No.10 accepts that its time to go anytime soon, to resolve both the issues that the Country is facing and keep any chance of the Conservative Party alive, a new Leader must be ‘crowned’. A process that only in the circumstances of choosing the best candidate available, the Membership of the Party will accept as a necessary step to keep the Party from smashing into the ground.

The best thing that ALL of these ‘candidates’ can do as public representatives is consider the reality and impact of all that they are doing.

It is time to accept that winning and success are not simply about being top dog or holding the keys to No.10.

A successful outcome for all of us will be about the commitment that everyone brings to the table and the contribution that each and everyone entrusted with responsibility makes.

We have had decades of politicians getting the formula progressively wrong. It’s time for all of them to start thinking differently and that means considering the wider impact and consequences of every single decision they make and even the smallest things that they do.

Only one person can be Prime Minister and we are now entering a time when simply securing the role is only a preliminary step to the gargantuan task that a successful outcome will guarantee to be involved.

If these ‘leaders’ want to be seen to lead, the only thing they can do responsibly is unite behind one Brexiteer Candidate who can and is prepared to fight and win a General Election within 6 months.

Anything else will certainly be seen for all that it is by a Public now awakened to all that Politicians do. And the Conservative Party will not be forgiven if it replaces May with just another ambitious wannabe who when faced with the responsibility of acting selflessly and without fear on behalf of everybody, simply turns out to be another genuinely lost cause.

donkey image thanks to unknown

Will May’s final legacy be the longest squatter in No.10?

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The Head Scratching Olympics are well underway. Most of us are struggling to work out what it is that May believes she can achieve by remaining in No.10. And the whole sorry episode of a British Prime Minister not having the decency to go when it is clear that everything is falling on its arse around them would have been bad enough weeks ago. But this story just seems to get progressively worse.

Even now, amongst the few people trying to remain human about the reality that we are all bewilderingly watch unfold, there are those attempting to excuse or rather find a plausible excuse for what the Prime Minister has done.

Top of the list in the conversations that I have had in the past 24 hours is what might not be the wholly inaccurate suggestion that there remain vested interests around her which are leading her to believe that there is still currency in what she is doing. That history will be her real ally when the tale of her standing firm against all others is finally told.

Sadly, when close advisers and the trusted are busy whispering poison into their subject’s ears, its true nature is often laced with a sickly sweet or otherwise convincing twist. Especially in circumstances when anything but the painful truth is what they actually want to hear.

What we have to remember here is that May is the epitome of the ‘Old Politics’.

The Prime Minister has reached her position through levels of personal ambition and related self-interest that has swept all before it aside.

The problem is that a political career, formed in the same way as it has been for many of the MPs that we have today is hollow on substance. It’s based on always saying yes to the right people, no to those who have no value to the ‘pathway’ and in keeping a careful eye on the long-term prize with every decision they make and action that they take.

Anyone that has become so involved in a process of this nature will rarely pay attention to the real purpose of the jobs they take or the consequences that come from the wider reach of the responsibilities involved.

It’s all about how it all looks to others and what that perception of the power they have accumulated actually means to everyone else.

It means that as soon as they have a level of responsibility that they cannot deflect upon others, they will inevitably find themselves scratching around for anything that resembles an anchor upon which they can pin their tenure or indeed their legacy, before the whole lie crashes to the ground.

The reality that May has been a key part of the attempt to thwart Brexit has been evident for an already unsettling period of time.

By doing so, and by having been enabled to continue to do so, the Prime Minister has laid bare the dark secrets of the many years of the non-democracy in this Country. An injustice to the Public hiding in plain sight.

The truth that the Expenses Scandal first pointed to and the mismanagement of Brexit has finally lifted the lid on, is that we have had generations of politicians who are in it for nothing more than themselves and whatever is important to them, be that money, expenses, privilege, advantage, popularity or the perception of power.

So when your World and everything in your ‘plan’ is falling apart around you, what do you do to ensure you maintain credibility in the long term, and that history will be kind?

Regrettably for Prime Minister Theresa, Brexit via her completely flawed and apparently misconstrued Withdrawal Agreement will not be the legacy that she will be remembered for.

But with the ‘Old Politics’ being the preserve of the cynical, who work on the basis that the Public will always forget, there comes a time when that anchor has to be found so that as part of the escape plan, at least history will see them in a positive light.

Today, without any other legitimate reason to rule out leaving and extend her stay, it looks astoundingly like the Prime Minister has pinned her hopes of leaving a legacy on beating Gordon Brown’s tenancy as Prime Minister. Keeping the fragments of powder dry that she has left, so that in her eyes she will be seen in hindsight to have served longer as Prime Minister. Everyone else will surely remember it as the longest squat in No.10.

We can only hope that a British Prime Minister would not actually be so selfish.

But the timescales of announcing her departure, post the European Elections and the date that makes her stay longer than Brown’s at the end of May would seem uncannily prescient.

It would, after all, precipitate a process within the Conservative Party that in her mind would keep her in Office until the Autumn and would certainly correlate with the commentary currently coming from No.10.

If Theresa May really is so self-absorbed to believe that this is all that counts when it comes to being Prime Minister, and the Conservative Party continue to enable her to see out this term in the hope that it will allow a ‘smooth’ transition for someone as equally ambitious and from the very same ‘Old Politics’ school as this disastrous PM, the Party truly deserves everything that is now coming from the Brexit Party and everything that will inevitably follow.

A future not under control, but nonetheless inevitable. Because all opportunities to go another way were repeatedly missed or more likely deliberately avoided as these sycophants indulged her, come what may.

 

 

 

If the Conservatives finally catch up with events and somehow remove May, the last thing we need is for them to waste time seeking support for Brexit from the EU

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For many reasons, Boris could still be the one to make the difference once May goes. The question is, has he already sold-out to the ‘old politics’ and  self-interest before the fight to change British Politics for the better has even began?

Although we have all lived through the experience of thinking May is finally about to go, for it to not then happen – almost too many times to count, the reality is that even her many months of borrowed time are now on borrowed time and upon borrowed time itself.

The open descent within Parliament and the Local Conservative Party network tells us that barring the miraculous fall of a series of dominoes that the Prime Minister has never even attempted to line up, she will be gone within a matter of days if not weeks.

I have previously made the argument that there are good reasons why the next Leader of the Conservative Party should be Boris Johnson. Not because he will make the best Prime Minister. But because he is likely to be the best option for Prime Minister we have available to us right now.

To recap on that, Boris was the only Conservative MP and known leadership candidate currently sitting who a) appeared to be making the right noises about the direction of travel for the Country; b) has a demonstrable track record that suggests he is savvy enough to link future policy as being irremovably entwined with his own ambition; c) is likely to have sense enough to surround himself with the right people as advisors and Ministers to ‘get the job done’ if and when his time came and d) has a level of currency existing with the Electorate that could give him a winning edge against Corbyn in a General Election when all the other necessary building blocks are in place.

The mixture of these factors would logically overcome the remaining questions about his suitability to be in No.10. Character and personal ambition are not particularly great issues when the right objectives are prioritised. And up until the point that the phoney war stages of the Conservative Leadership race have come into the open in the days since the Local Elections last week, there had been no reason to think otherwise.

Today, that changed. Boris has indicated that if he is successful in his bid to occupy No.10, the first thing he will do is go back to the EU and get them to ditch the backstop.

As a former Cabinet Minister and Brussels-based Journalist, BoJo should know so much more about the EU than most. How it works and what its detailed history indicates that it will almost certainly do in any circumstance should be ringing alarm bells very loudly about everything to come.

So to even suggest it will be as simple as going back and creating an opt-out that everyone has known – not least of all the EU itself – would have broken the Brexit impasse many months ago, takes wishful thinking to a very different kind of level and extreme.

One of the most notable things that we will remember about Theresa May’s Premiership in the dying days and months of it, was her repeatedly opting to sell-out to keep herself in the job of PM, no matter what the implications for our People and the Country involved.

We do not need May to be replaced by another Conservative Prime Minster who has simply said all the right things. Words and dialogue synonymous with misleading terms like ‘Brexit means Brexit’. Spoken in order to secure the ‘top job’, whilst privately knowing that their own future and legacy are to them the only sacrosanct thing.

Boris’ article in yesterday’s Telegraph flew and immediate red flag when he openly outed himself as a ‘One Nation Conservative’, leaving the reader with the immediate question of whether this was a price that he may now have paid behind closed doors to secure the support for his leadership bid from ardent Europhiles such as Amber Rudd.

The price that we might all pay for any attempt at taking the ‘easy way’ for any Conservative leadership hopeful may indeed turn out to be the sought after change of guard.

But instead of the decisive leadership and direction that we need, we will just experience a continuation of attempts to find a Remain-based accommodation with the EU. One that does enough to dupe the Voters, castrate Nigel Farage and the Brexit Party Movement, whilst keeping Conservatives – who are more interested in themselves and what they can get from being in Government in power, rather than taking in any way seriously what it means to lead the UK Government and be entrusted by the People to be in charge.

It will be a potentially disastrous mistake with implications that reach out far beyond the scope of the Conservative Party, if the only Conservative leadership candidate who is currently gifted with the ability to beat Corbyn in a General Election within months, sells out now. Days or weeks before the real work gets underway, just before what is likely to be a turning point in our history has arrived, and missing the real opportunity that exists to lead us properly and to put everything wrong with British Politics and our system of Government right.

As I have written in detail in recent days, the only way that a solution can be found that will suit the needs and aims of Brexiteers and Remainers alike and bring us all back together will be for the UK to Leave the EU properly, and ONLY THEN seek to negotiate a new relationship from the point where the EU has none of its so-called security, perceived as being in the bag, as it has done up until now with May and the many Prime Ministers who have led us in a subservient relationship before.

The steps are simple for the Conservative MP who is chosen to lead and is serious about living up to the responsibility of doing so.

  1. Forget the EU – we have until Thursday 31st October 2019 and if you are ready to stand up and be counted on our behalf, that’s plenty of time to get things done
  2. Create a new Manifesto – involve the People and not just sympathizers and activists in a new dynamic form of political interaction and conversation. One where everyone feels they have a stake in the development of a new way of doing government which is fair, robust but above all is there to work for everyone
  3. Go back to the People to secure a new Mandate in time to tell the EU before the end of October that the UK is Leaving, without any kind of deal and that any future relationship with them will be subservient only to our own Independence and Sovereignty as a self-governing nation, and the mission creep and implementation of law-by-stealth will no longer for us be the way that things are done.

There are many of us out here taking no pleasure from the sight of the Conservative Party’s demise.

We believe that the Conservative Party could still recover under the right form and style of Leadership, overturn the Brexit impasse and then take the UK forward to realise all the opportunities that await us after Brexit and beyond.

Yet we have also seen the willingness to self-destruct within this once great Party, from people who still today prioritise only themselves, their careers and the few others around them that they perceive to be actively involved and important.

The reality is that if the Conservative Party finally gets rid of Theresa May as it should have done many months before now and replaces her with any leader who is the same or who will behave the same because of the priorities they formulate in order to secure and keep their office, the new incumbent will simply finish off the process of putting nails in the Conservative Party’s coffin. The final part of the process which the current Prime Minister began after many years of this ‘old politics’ being at work within the Conservative Party and all forms of government, not realising it was in terminal decline.

 

image thanks to ‘ITV Headcases’