Brexit, Cummings and Goings, Labour’s Travails and Privatising the BBC

Concerning Friday, January 31, 2020 – aka Black Friday.

“Tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this”

Thus Hamlet brooding on the hasty re-marriage of his mother.

Substitute “has” for “should” in the 3^rd line  and the words of Hamlet / Shakespeare sum up the melancholy thoughts of this Remainer at the prospects for the UK after Brexit.

Holdenforth recently received an appeal from The New Statesman (headed,“Is this the beginning of a new era?”), as it seeks to re-connect with and recover up readers who have fallen by the wayside.

The appeal to lapsed subscribers to return to the New Statesman fold continued:

“Boris Johnson boasts of his ambition to get Brexit done and last Friday the UK left the EU. But of course Brexit is a process and not a single event, and the whole sorry saga will drag on and on as the UK searches for a new role and renewed purpose in the world.

Jeremy Cliffe, our international editor, calls it “the end of a European dream.”

Well, if that is the best that the New Statesman can do, we won’t be renewing our subscription.

The concern of Holdenforth with the appeal, an appeal made more in sorrow than anger, centres on the vapid vagueness of a “search by the UK for a new role and a renewed purpose in the world.” We can’t see the masses thronging the streets demanding “a new role” not to mention “a renewed purpose”.

Can you see it happening?

I mean just between the two of us: can you?

I thought not.

How does Holdenforth see events moving between now and December 31^st, 2020?

The first point to establish is this: Is the UK IN the EU or OUT of the EU?

According to BoJo, the UK LEFT  the EU at 11 pm on January 31. Parties were held, gongs were struck, MEPs from the UK vacated their offices and left the EU payroll and 50p coins were specially minted to mark our departure.

That seems pretty clear to me – the UK has left the EU.

Except that all the complex arrangements that control our membership will continue to operate. Arrangements that control the movement of goods, services, capital and people will stay in place until replaced by a new trade agreement or until December 31^st – whichever comes first.

Are you still with us? As of right now – are we in or out?

We at Holdenforth are tempted to do a Jeremy Corbyn and suggest that we put this complex question to the electorate but that would be a dereliction of our duty.

We can be and we will be much more decisive.

Here goes: To all intents and purposes the UK will remain a member of the EU until either a new deal is reached between the parties to replace the existing arrangements

Or,

We get to midnight on Thursday, December 31, 2020 and there is no agreement is which case the UK leaves without a deal, to usher in an era of painfully protracted chaos.

The Tories will strive to conclude a “deal” with the EU that they can present to the UK people as being a wholly satisfactory outcome, combining sensible trade arrangements with the EU with control by HMG of those powers that ought to be controlled by HMG.

For their part the EU authorities will seek to ensure that the four essential features of the EU, namely free movement of Goods, Services, Capital and Labour, remain intact.

To what extent are these seemingly mutually exclusive objectives reconcilable?

We will be somewhat clearer as the deadline of December 31^st  approaches.

(In previous blogs Holdenforth has referred to a wager with a walking colleague made a few years as to whether or not the UK would remain in the EU or leave the EU. Holdenforth now accepts that we have lost the bet. The only point still to be resolved is – when exactly does the bet become payable? We trust that these comments clarify the position.

Is that it? 

Well – Not quite.

Holdenforth suspects that during the next 45 weeks, a range of problems will emerge – problems triggered directly or indirectly by Brexit.

The Tory approach will doubtless be to dismiss these as little local difficulties: BoJo and his cabinet clones will airily dismiss them as mere trivia.

UK citizens adversely affected by these problems may take a more critical, albeit a more prosaic view. As jobs disappear, as businesses relocate away from the economic turmoil that will engulf the UK, the people of the UK will learn that you can’t eat slogans and that they have sacrificed solid advantages – for what?

The stock in trade of BoJo is froth, a commodity not easily converted to tangible assets.

The wisdom or – lack of it – of the Leave decision will become more apparent by the day.

Any developments since Black Friday, January 31^st?

“Johnson fury as EU reneges on deal”
Sunday Telegraph headline, February 2, 2020

The accompanying report notes that “Boris Johnson has become privately infuriated at what he sees as the European Union’s attempts to frustrate a comprehensive free trade deal.”

Holdenforth simply notes that it takes a renegade to recognise a renegade; BoJo has worked hard over the years to earn his stripes as a renegade. Don’t take the word of Holdenforth – just ask David Cameron.

The atmosphere during the next 11 months will not have been helped by mutual accusations of broken promises ahead of the first meeting to examine the scope for a trade agreement.

The Symonds / Cummings spat

“Cripes – It’s Carrie V Cummings. Prime Minister’s partner and his chief advisor at war over cabinet reshuffle.”
Daily Mail, February 10, 2020

The article suggested that an acrimonious war for access to the ears of BoJo had broken out between Ms Symonds and Mr Cummings, with the latter keen to cull the vast swathes of ministerial SPADs (special advisors), including various friends of the former

The view of Holdenforth on reading that article was that there would be only be one winner in this conflict: BoJo would continue to be more impressed by the successes of Mr Cummings than by the charms of Ms Simmonds. Holdenforth’s view proved to be correct, as within three days, many of said SPADs were given their P45s, while Sajid Javed, on being informed that the departure of his SPADs was non-negotiable, followed them out of the Treasury door.

An outbreak of profligacy

Holdenforth has noted the readiness of BoJo to support the shaky HS2 project. His support for the project is not wholly surprising: – BoJo will be anxious to retain the votes recently borrowed from northern working-class voters. He knows better than anyone that disgruntled Tory voters are unlikely to switch over to Labour.

On a historical note, Holdenforth’s great grandfather and his great great grandfather, worked on the railway line which connected Preston to Carlisle back in the late 19^th century. We have no grounds to suppose that the line was any less reliable in those days than it appears to be today.

My grandfather and my father were also both lifelong railway employees.

If only for sentimental reasons, we would love see a successful UK rail sector.

Notes on the decline and fall of the Labour Party

Holdenforth will use the opportunity afforded by the relative calm of the national political scene to say a few words about the decline in the performance of and the prospects for that once great political party, the Labour Party.

What has gone wrong and why?

In 1992, after the Labour Party led by Neil Kinnock snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, John Major stayed as PM for the next 5 years. However, after Blair succeeded to the Labour Party leadership on John Smith’s death in 1994, he proceeded to deliver the party three large majorities at General Elections (1997, 2001 and 2005).

However, Blair’s decision to support the invasion of Iraq in 2003, allied to the machinations of Gordon Brown and his acolytes, led to an erosion of support and ultimately to Blair’s decision to resign in 2007, when he was inevitably replaced by Brown.

Holdenforth believes that Blair should have treated Gordon Brown as roughly as he, Tony Blair, had treated Saddam Hussein and that he, Tony Blair, should have shown Saddam Hussein the cautious circumspection that he had shown Gordon Brown.

Two errors of judgement on his part that were to have serious adverse consequences for the UK and for the Labour Party.

In the wake of global recession in 2008/9, support for Brown feel away, and at the 2010 General Election – David Cameron emerged as leader of a coalition with the Lib Dems.

Gordon Brown resigned as leader of the Labour Party and was replaced by the narrowest of margins by Ed Miliband (remember him?). Brown departed to deserved oblivion.

Holdenforth believes that the rot set in for the Labour Party with the election of Ed Miliband, a well-meaning nonentity, as leader.

When Cameron secured a narrow but effective majority at the subsequent election in 2015, Miliband resigned as Party Leader and was replaced – astonishingly – as leader by Jeremy Corbyn.

Another massive step in the descent into mediocrity.

Mr Corbyn was not a mendacious leader or an inconsistent leader – he was simply not a leader at all. There was a vacuum at the top of the party with wholly foreseeable consequences; after a false dawn in 2017, when Corbyn achieved 40% of the vote primarily by not being Mrs Theresa May, his lack of capabilities were brutally exposed by a Conservative machine energized and directed by Dominic Cummings.

In the aftermath of the worst Labour performance in more than 80 years, Corbyn has been persuaded to resign as as leader as soon as his successor is elected.

As I write the field of candidates has been reduced to 3

• Sir Keir Starmer
• Ms Lisa Nandy
• Ms Rebecca Long-Bailey

Holdenforth understands that:

• The supporters of Sir Keir Starmer have been engaged in some dubious activities as regards gaining access to details of party membership. Further details are awaited.
• Ms Rebecca Long-Bailey is being portrayed  in some quarters as a Trotskyite and a Corbyn clone. Holdenforth readers must check with other sources on the reliability of these stories. Are the two categories mutually exclusive or what?

Suffice it to say that as things stand BoJo will not be worried about the possibility of being put under pressure from the official opposition.

 What about the BBC?

BoJo is rumoured to be looking for ways to cut the BBC down to size. He and his colleagues are said to unhappy about the political bias within the BBC.

Holdenforth has not noted any political bias – one way or the other. What we have noticed is the regrettable propensity on the part of  senior BBC managers to enrich themselves in the absence of the commercial disciplines that are built into media organisations in the privatised sector.

The female of the species that inhabits the BBC has observed this activity and has acted quickly on the principle that if you can’t beat them – then join them.

Holdenforth distrusts and dislikes much of what the BBC does and what, in this post Reith era, it stands for.

We urge BoJo to privatise the BBC whilst there is still something left to sell.

In a recent interview Michael Grade, ex Director General of the BBC  stuck firmly to the official mendacious BBC line that the public loves the BBC.

Lord Grade  is entitled to his opinion and we at Holdenforth are entitled to ours.

The public does not love the BBC.

(Readers please note – our case to privatise the BBC is not related in any way to the plan within the BBC to abolish free licences for the over 75s. The fact that I will be 80 next birthday is wholly irrelevant.)

And now to finish –  why Holdenforth  loves social media

Two interesting e mails this morning:-

Firstly, An e mail from Coaltrans, which posed the question: could Russian suppliers succeed where Indonesians have failed?

This one foxed me because I had not been aware that Indonesian suppliers had failed.

I will add the problem to my to do list.

Secondly, an email which advised Holdenforth that it was only 12 connections from accelerating its career through LinkedIn.

This is obviously my top priority – I will stop blogging and get cracking with the clicker.

Confessions of an Aged Remainer

I spent the days following the BoJo Brexit triumph brooding on how and why my forecast of the outcome was so far out. On the shaky basis of the assertion made by St Augustine many centuries ago that confession is good for the soul I wrote a personal blog in which I examined the reasons for my significant errors.

I sought to redeem myself – in my own eyes – by insisting that the Remainers had lost a significant battle but also that what had gone on thus far was mere shadow boxing, a phoney war phase.

The real struggle over Brexit will begin as BoJo seeks to engage with the rather more formidable forces lining up across the channel.

However, Holdenforth should not and will not make the mistake of under-estimating the considerable successes achieved by BoJo in the Brexit General Election – Brexel – held on December 12, 2019.

Let us remind ourselves about what BoJo did achieve.

 He consigned Farage and the Brexit party to history. The Tories claimed – with some justification – that if Mr Farage had vacated the field and left Brexit to them that the rout in northern Labour leave seats could have been repeated in the Labour heartlands in the Welsh valleys.

Similarly, the Lib Dems were, if not consigned to history, very badly mauled. Some argue that their defeat was largely self-inflicted because of the unrealistic strategy that was imposed on them by their leader, Jo Swanson.

(A contender for the vacant leadership of the mauled party, Layla Moran, is said to be pansexual. Sadly HF will have to seek advice from the younger generation about the nature and significance of this announcement, We who were teenagers in the 1950s are unlikely to be familiar with this latest category.)

The Labour Party (“He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill” – Edmund Burke). Opposition and dissent were widespread in the Labour Party, but these activities were largely confined to furious internal wrangling rather than directed at Boris and his Tory colleagues.

It is doubtful if the fire directed by Labour at the Tories did much, if indeed anything at all, to strengthen the nerves or to sharpen the skills of their alleged opponents

The obliteration of the Labour Party was almost entirely self-inflicted. I have written at length on the combination of factors that enabled Jeremy Corbyn to become the leader of the Labour Party in 2015. Suffice it to say that the results of the General Election made it abundantly clear that there is a chasm between the views of the (predominantly pro-Corbyn) Labour membership and those of the rather larger body that is the British electorate.

As I write, various contenders for the vacant leadership are busy distancing themselves from the electoral debacle and seeking to persuade those eligible to vote in the election to determine the next leader that they need look no further than Mr X, Sir Y or Ms Z in order to secure to secure a speedy return to top party status.

To this outsider – as would be replacements emerge to brandish their credentials and offer to lead the poor and the oppressed back to the promised land – we are gloomy about the prospects facing a once formidable political party.

 The second referendum movement. Reports about the number who turned up for the final people’s vote demonstration movement vary – some quote a figure not unadjacent to one million.

Sadly BoJo was not impressed and continued to insist that most people just wanted his version of Brexit – pop it into the micro for a few minutes – job done.

The marchers vacated the Brexit battlefield and disappeared into oblivion.

 The purge of the Tory dissenters. The effectiveness (and ruthlessness) of the purge from the Tory Party of dissenting colleagues perturbed some and dismayed others.

Holdenforth suspects that Stalin would have been very impressed.

Those dispatched have been left to lick their wounds.

So – take it away BoJo – it’s all yours

 Holdenforth musings on the Queen’s Speech

A few days after the election HM The Queen gave a speech in which she outlined the carefully crafted BoJo plans for the next five years and hints of what was to follow in 2024.

My gloom intensified when I found that I was in agreement with a few of the planned measures. It intensified still further when I read some of the advice from the Tory supporters on the touchlines about other measures that BoJo might bring in should he encounter a quiet period – and found myself nodding to one or two of these measures.

Let me list some of these at the outset rather than try to kid myself later that I had opposed all the Tory plans.

In no special order:

• The NHS – enshrine the protection of the NHS funding in law. Tick.
• Postal voting – bring in measures to curb the abuses that have grown up around the postal voting arrangements. Tick.
• Implement the long-delayed proposals of the boundary commission that all constituencies shall to the fullest extent possible contain the same number of voters. Tick. (Those with very long memories will recall that this was one of the popular demands of the levellers back in Cromwell’s day.)

Holdenforth has also noted an increasing impatience in some quarters with the alleged lack of neutrality at the BBC. For our part we have not detected this bias. What we have detected and regret is that the spirit of Sir John Reith has long been absent from the BBC. Its mission statement now would read – “There’s no business like show business.” Why not just privatise it?

Cummings and Civil Service Goings

 “Whatever was required to be done, the circumlocution office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving”
From Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

Within the last few days Holdenforth has noted that Mr Dominic Cummings, evidently exasperated by the combination of ineptitude and turpitude that masquerades as government, is anxious to replace the present languid Whitehall managers with sharp up to date whiz kids.

Sadly we suspect that, were we at Holdenforth to apply to enlist in his new model army,  Mr.  Cummings would be unimpressed both by our senility and by our suspicion that he is just the latest in a long line of managerial bullshitters.

Notes on the outcome of The Brexit General Election

“What happened – what happened – I’m coming to that…”
From “The Witnesses” by WH Auden. 

First of all – the result – a Conservative majority over all the other parties of 80 – a clear victory – no ifs and no buts. The most convincing win since Mr Blair’s third and final win in 2005

The winners:

• The Tories under Boris Johnson
• The SNP under Nicola Sturgeon

The losers:

• The Labour Party under Mr Corbyn
• The SDP under Jo Swinson
• The Brexit Party under Mr Farage
• The People’s Vote movement

How and why did what happened, happen?

Holdenforth believes that two  separate but linked issues should be considered.

• The policies of the various competing parties.
• The effectiveness with which these policies were presented to the electorate.

Let’s get the second issue  out of the way first.

Quite simply, the Labour Party was outclassed in terms of effective propaganda throughout the campaign. Holdenforth suspects that if the Labour Party campaign had been managed, controlled and directed by Messrs Levido and Cummings and the Tory Party campaign managed, controlled and directed  by Mr Milne and his associates – the outcome might well have been a victory for Labour.

Holdenforth has been given to understand that the leaders of the Tory campaign have no particular enthusiasm for the Tory party. They were and are political managers working to a brief along the lines – You have six months – or whatever  –  to increase the Tory Party market share of the vote.  So – just get out there and get on with it and get it done – nice and simple and straightforward.

The Levido – Cummings campaign, under the overall control of Mr. Levido, did just that. They grasped that Brexit was THE key issue, and they understood clearly how to target the electorate to hammer this point across over and over again in Labour-held seats in the north of England that had voted to leave.

Everyone involved in the Tory campaign and especially the senior figures, were required to stick to the script and to keep it simple.

The word is that the Levido-Cummings team started early and finished late every date to ensure that everyone stuck to the plan.

Just one example to illustrate this. Any Tory figure, however prominent his or her public profile, was immediately sidelined and silenced if he/ she was deemed to be a liability in the quest for votes.

Quite right too.

Got that, Mr Rees-Mogg?

 What about the effectiveness of the Labour Party Campaign?

As noted, the Labour Party was outclassed. The contest between the Levido team and the Milne team was embarrassing to behold. Holdenforth, observing events from our remote outpost in Pontypool, was disconcerted by the tsunami flow of policy announcements, frequently sensible individually, but doubtfully plausible as part of an election manifesto.

Looking back, it is difficult not to be struck by the combination of a policy overload, a bad idea in itself, but far worse, a perceived lack of conviction on the part of those promulgating the policies.

For Holdenforth, the low point in a hopeless amateurish campaign was the publication of a private telephone conversation between a senior Labour Figure, Mr Ashworth, and a Tory friend, about the shortcomings of Mr Corbyn. Mr Ashworth was commendably candid but possibly unwise to assume that his comments would be off the record. He, Mr Ashworth, opined that his unhelpful comments had been made jokingly and it is understood that they got a lot of laughs among the Tory faithful.

The shortcomings of the LIB Dem campaign were inextricably intertwined with the shortcomings of the underlying policies. It was very rash of Jo Swinson to talk confidently, even hubristically, about what she would do when installed in Number 10 – shades of an overconfident Mr Kinnock back in 1992.

Her announced commitment to over-rule the outcome of the 2016 referendum in the event of a Lib Dem election victory was said by her many critics, including some in the Lib Dem  camp, to be ill advised. Voters have a time-honoured habit of taking a dim view of arrogant assumptions made by party leaders before the votes have been counted – and the voters wield the ultimate sanction.

 What about the Brexit Party and Mr Farage?

It was startling to see the speed with which Mr Farage and his party were jettisoned by the Tories as the campaign wore on. Given that Mr Farage was largely responsible for the very existence of Brexit this was harsh, but Mr Farage, more than most, would know that the Tory party has a long and successful record of disposing of inconvenient allies.

He should have seen that one coming, he didn’t, and the Brexit party is now as dead as UKIP.

The People’s Vote campaign – oh dear oh dear oh dear

How could so many serious thinkers get it so wrong?

BoJo ignored them as they were in the very act of demonstrating their strength in numbers as around a million or so of them thronged the streets around Westminster prior to the election.

 Let us turn from the effectiveness of the campaigns waged by the various parties to the soundness of their policies

* Holdenforth was startled by the size of the final impressive Tory majority but we gather that most observers and participants, including BoJo, were similarly startled.

The surprise of BoJo was mingled with great joy, a sentiment emphatically not shared by Holdenforth.

* Holdenforth argued from the time that Brexit first emerged as a major issue in 2014 to the present time that the interests of the UK would be best served by remaining in the EU.

That will remain the firm fixed position of Holdenforth.

* In our defence we had focused throughout the campaign on the single issue of staying in or leaving, to the exclusion of all other considerations.

We have to concede that we did not foresee the extent to which the Labour Party would see Brexit as just another issue, and moreover, one which could safely be left to the people to resolve.

* The Tory Party reduced Brexit, not to a minor matter, but as one to be immediately sorted as a priority and then they would sort out all the other various problems.

Hence the BoJo slogan – “just stick it in the micro – job done – and then we can turn to other more serious matters.”

* We readily concede that the Brexit cause received the most powerful the most emphatic endorsement of its core policy on December 12.

* We contend that what we have had thus far has been a painfully protracted overture and that the real test of the Brexit cause is yet to come.

We further contend that, when put to the test,  the Brexit cause will collapse like the proverbial house of cards, leaving a confused chaotic country which will become  a paradise for spivs and charlatans – and a bleak country for those unable to protect themselves.

* The Remain case is as strong today as it has been from the start – and Holdenforth hopes that the Remainers will continue the fight until the Brexiteers are routed.

BoJo raucously proclaimed a few days ago – you ain’t seen nothing yet. Holdenforth would agree with him on this point.

Did we at Holdenforth get anything right?

* We flagged up early on the fragility of the Labour campaign and asked -” who is going to hand the black spot to Jezza.”

Answer came there none.

No shortage of denigrators now that JC is out for the count. They, his former colleagues and comrades, are queuing up to put the boot in.

* We reported that the People’s Vote campaign, despite bursting with energy and good ideas, was going nowhere – and it didn’t go anywhere.

* We thought of what happened on December 12 not as a traditional general election but as a sui generis – a one off. We even coined the term BrexEl to describe it.  We failed to anticipate the extent to which the Labour Party would disengage from the most important issue of our time

* We were only half wrong –  Messrs Cummings and Levido shared our view and the Tory campaign was based on the premise that the only issue worthy of debate was Brexit.

* In sharp contrast the Labour Party widened the scope of the campaign almost on a daily basis. Brexit was treated  as just another issue to be addressed – along with the NHS, public ownership, taxation and so on and so forth, and having failed to think anything through, got into all sorts of difficulties  as the campaign wore on.

* More fundamentally we failed to see that the campaign was developing into an old fashioned party contest between the two main parties of the past 100 years, Tory and Labour,  and that the intruders – the johnny come latelies,  the Faragists and the Lib Dems and the massed ranks of the foot soldiers marching for a second referendum – would be and indeed were quickly and effectively marginalised.

* We had not taken sufficient note of the extent to which those in the Tory Party who disagreed with BoJo had been purged prior to the election.

The purges were not exactly as draconian as those carried by Stalin in Russia – under Stalin the unlucky ones met their grisly fate in Lubyanka prison. The more fortunate ones were sent to Siberia to be re-educated.

Any Tory harbouring rebel thoughts in the future will have noted the melancholy fate of purged ex Tory MPs who stood as independents.

Brexit –  what happens next in the short term?

The UK will initiate the procedure which will result in the departure of the UK from the EU.

HMG, under the control of BoJo, holds all the cards in the game to be played in Westminster  because he has comprehensively  defeated not only the Labour Party – to be more precise they defeated themselves – but he has seen off Farage on his right and the Lib Dems on his left.

Holdenforth has no idea what became of the ambulatory tendency as represented by the Peoples Vote movement – they simply melted away into political obscurity.

The struggle for power in the defeated Labour Party has already started,  albeit a tetchy acrimonious start. The female of the political species has been rather readier than the male to declare an interest in leading the UK out of the House of Bondage and into the Promised Land but Holdenforth cannot see any of the candidates who have thus far put their heads above the parapet,  posing much of a  problem for BoJo.

 The heart of the matter – what might be the consequences for the UK of leaving the EU – with or without a deal as the case may be?

As noted Holdenforth believes that events in the Brexit farce to date have provided a painfully protracted overture, that the real test is yet to come, that Brexit will fail that real test by a wide margin,  and the UK will end up paying a heavy price for  the squalid actions of the guilty politicians.

BoJo has achieved notable success with his mantra of “let’s get Brexit done”, a success which owed far more to the pitiful performance of his opponents than to the elusive attractions of the Brexit policy itself.

Somehow I can’t see the next stage as featuring the 27 EU leaders chanting in unison and with enthusiasm “lets get Brexit done.”

Can you ?

What we at Holdenforth do see is the gradual erosion of the Brexit case as the various supporting planks collapse.

Rather than itemising the various one liners (Take back control of our borders; Take back control of our laws; Take back control of our country, Trade around the world and replace the EU arrangements with exciting new deals) let us take just one example.

Can you imagine Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg touring the West Country and doling out control to peasants.

“Have some control, my good man. No charge. This is on me.”

Can’t see it myself.

What I can see – what I do see – is  an ever widening gap between the haves and the have nots, increased social unrest, acrimony between the EU and the UK as BoJo seeks to blame EU for the consequences of  his irresponsible actions.

Where and when and how will it all end?

Come to think of it – why and how the hell did it ever begin?

In any event let us hope that the EU will excuse our bad manners and our destructive propensities for self-harming and extricate us from our predicament.

The Aftermath

The morning after the election, Holdenforth Junior considers the reasons behind Labour’s defeat and its possible future direction.

For millennials and teenagers, the result of the general election will be a chastening experience. IT should also deliver a salutary lesson, namely that one’s social media news feed may well be wholly unrepresentative of how the great unwashed think, and hence, for whom they are likely to vote. As Britain went to vote in the wind and the rain, one Twitter wag wryly observed, “Don’t worry lads, I’ve had a look on Facebook and Twitter and it’s 98% Labour, so the election’s in the bag.”

In the wake of the exit poll, there was an outpouring of dismay mixed with disbelief: several Twitterites excoriated the broadcasters for their methodology, arguing that it simply couldn’t be accurate (it was); there was an overwhelming sense of incredulity that, with the surge in voting registrations amongst the under-30s, the country had delivered an outcome wholly at odds with what they had been led to believe would occur.

There are two issues here. The first is that individuals on social media are not representative of the population as a whole, with the vociferous Twittersphere being significantly more left-leaning that the mean. The second is that, not unnaturally, those on social media primarily engage with individuals who share their interests, or those who interest them: thus, if you are a Momentum supporter, you are far more likely to follow Jeremy Corbyn and what might be termed “progressive” news sites than Boris Johnson or the Daily Telegraph; you are not likely to engage with Conservatives except to suggest that they are, individually and collectively, lying, corrupt, cowardly, contemptible pieces of work who would sell their grannies for sixpence. While in many cases this may be true, it does not necessarily follow that those on Twitter with whom you do not engage, let alone those who don’t engage with Twitter, feel the same. Furthermore, if you primarily obtain your news from the aforementioned sites, which have been arraigned in recent weeks with adoring crowds hearkening unto Jeremy, it may therefore come as something of a shock belatedly to discover that, out of shot, there were millions of voters who were less than impressed with Corbyn and his agenda.

Unsurprisingly, many of Corbyn’s closest supporters are seeking to paint the calamitous defeat wholly on the party’s equivocal Brexit stance; that he should have accepted the result of the 2016 referendum and sought instead to cut a somewhat better deal that those of May and Johnson. Well, Labour’s vote share did fall significantly further in areas which voted Leave than those which voted Remain, but in all areas of the country, activists found that the response on the doorstep was less “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn!” and more “Oh. Jeremy Corbyn.”

Corbyn is the most unpopular Labour leader ever: his net popularity ratings have long been south of minus fifty (in this regard he is currently, marginally, more acceptable than Prince Andrew). Those who know him argue that this is unfair: he is honest, they say; he is certainly consistent, constant as the Morning Star, in his beliefs; he has unwaveringly pledged his support for radical, socialist, statist policies. However, decency and constancy alone do not equip one for the position of Prime Minister. Furthermore, those beliefs, ranging from a deep-rooted distrust of the European Union and NATO to outspoken backing for Marxist groups and regimes, have utterly alienated many who would otherwise be Labour supporters. At the same time, he has surrounded himself with an entourage whose decency and ulterior motives are certainly open to question, shabby, scheming individuals such as Len McCluskey, Andrew Murray and Seamus Milne. It has allegedly allowed anti-Semitism to flourish; it led to the promulgation of a host of frankly unpalatable policies, some of which teetered on the brink of the absurd, others which tumbled headlong into it. In so doing, all the positives from within the agenda were swamped. Nationalisation of the railways, a natural monopoly, would have been a splendid move; nationalisation of BT, which would have set the UK tech sector back decades, rather less of one.

Whether the Labour Party recognises the truly awful situation in which it finds itself is open to question. The Corbynistas are in full denial mode, claiming that, politically, the party was heading in the right direction and specifically rejecting the “triangulation” approach favoured by Blair. If this narrative is allowed to triumph within the party, then it may well be that Corbyn’s dubious achievement of garnering the lowest post-war number of Labour seats represents a short-lived floor. There has also been the usual whining about how it’s all the fault of the media, and how people were seduced by their anti-Corbyn rhetoric, an approach which is (a) tilting at windmills and (b) extremely patronising to the 45% who voted Conservative. (Note to Labour: if you want people to vote for you next time, it might be as well not to insult their intelligence or condemn them as racists.)

If the party comes to its senses, it will have none of this narrative; will jettison the inept time servers, and the street-corner barrackers; will ensure that Rebecca Long-Bailey, Diane Abbott, Angela Raynsford, Richard Burgon and the political tinnitus that is Barry Gardiner are never again within touching distance of a shadow Cabinet post; will turn at last to Keir Starmer.

Remember this: Corbyn was facing a Prime Minister who is, self-evidently, the most deceitful, shameless, cowardly Premier in living memory, perhaps ever, whose sole interest is the promotion of the prospects of Boris Johnson. Notwithstanding the Machiavellian genius of Dominic Cummings, whose lack of a moral compass greatly facilitates his unmatched abilities to flood the airwaves and social media with lies and disinformation, a moderate, half-competent Labour leader with a consistent Remain position opposed to Johnson’s blustering chicanery could well have emerged triumphant.

Instead, thanks to Corbyn and his allies, we will have Brexit and five years of Tory rule.

Well done, comrades.

The Battle for Number 10

There are now less than 100 hours to go before 10 pm on Thursday, December 12 at which point the media will announce to an eager national audience  the results of the various exit polls which will give a reliable forecast of the eventual outcome of Brexel – the Brexit General Election.

The long night of punditry will begin.

It seems to Holdenforth that just two outcomes are feasible.

 A clear victory by the Tories over all the other parties combined. Should this be the outcome Mr Johnson will be asked to pop along to see the Sovereign and be confirmed as our new First Minister,  or, as BoJo might put it, he would be popped into the Prime Ministerial micro, and hey presto – he would emerge jaunty and confident – job done.

What could be simpler?

OR – and please God it will be OR

The Tories fail to obtain the required numbers. At this point there would be launched an unseemly scramble to arrange an administration able to secure a parliamentary majority.

This phase might take a few days as manifestos are abandoned, promises and commitments made during the boisterous campaign are jettisoned, and new alliances and – dare we say it – new deals are sought.

Holdenforth is anxious that this second possibility IS the outcome as it could lead to the Brexit drama moving into extra time.

Let us explore a few prospects.

Mr Salter, the foreign editor of The Beast, an influential daily paper, was dining with Lord Copper, the owner of the Daily Beast.
“Mr Salter’s side of the conversation was limited to expressions of assent. When Lord Copper was right he said Definitely, Lord Copper; when he was wrong – up to a point.”
From Scoop by Evelyn Waugh

Let Holdenforth use the Waugh convention to cover the fiery column written by Richard Littlejohn in The Daily Mail on December 6.

“Farage’s gang of four are right: the only way IS BORIS”

Up to a point, RL.

Thankfully Holdenforth is not under any obligation to either the editor or the proprietor of The Daily Mail and we will proceed to explain why we hope that Her Majesty will be sending for Mr Corbyn to ask him to form a government following frantic post Brexit discussions.

 “There is no precedent in our history … to teach us that political measures can conjure away hereditary antipathies which are fed by constant agitation. The free institutions which sustain the life of a free and united people , sustain also the hatreds of a divided people.
Lord Salisbury writing wisely in 1872 about the Irish Question. Salisbury was later to become an accomplished Conservative Prime Minister.

BoJo, as the agitator in chief for Brexit, now has the impudence to ask the electors to heal the divisions that he himself created.

Meanwhile, the independent polls, not to be confused with party polls,  are indicating that the Tories will secure a narrow but working majority.

A tetchy reader of Holdenforth has taken me to task for weaknesses in my previous blog because I failed to make the important point that the gap between the Tory vote and the Labour vote was steadily narrowing and this trend ought to be made and emphasised.

The Tories were being selective in which polls they were using and, crucially, the timing of these polls. Obviously the Tories, with the inherited experience of centuries  of political chicanery to draw on, were using polling data in their favour to erode the morale of Labour activists in the hope of getting their opponents to throw in the towel, to hoist the white flag or whatever.

Holdenforth readily accepts the validity of this point. However, some additional points should be made. As the latest data from the Guardian poll tracker shows, while Labour’s anticipated vote share has increased from less than 25% in late-October to around 33% at the present time, that increase has come largely at the expense of Liberal Democrat rather than Conservative voters, with the ranks of the latter instead bolstered as the Brexit Party self-immolates. Indeed, the size of the Conservative majority forecast by Ladbrokes has remained broadly unchanged for the past three weeks.

Furthermore, in defence of my position I  stress that I  do not see the BrexEl election scheduled for December 12 as merely the latest contest between the party of reform and the party of reaction, but rather as an election with just one issue to be contested – Leave or Remain.

I would argue, indeed I do argue, that if the outcome is the discarding and early retirement of some prominent politicians, then, providing that the Remain cause survives to fight another day, so be it.

This election is about just issue – Brexit. Have you all got that!

Holdenforth remains a Remainer and we still hope that common sense will prevail to secure that aim.

Reflections on the campaign to date

The future of the UK and indeed of the EU is being decided rather like a bar room brawl, a brawl initiated and encouraged by the The Bullingdon Bruiser.

Holdenforth read somewhere or other that the only sensitive part of Boris Johnson is the tip of his organ of generation. Throughout the campaign he has lived up to the intriguing description.

It has been suggested, not just during the campaign, but throughout his entire political career, that the gravamen against BoJo is that he is untrustworthy.

Holdenforth does not accept this simplistic view. We suggest that in addition to being untrustworthy he is frivolous, irresponsible, a seedy third-rate comedian masquerading as a serious politician, a squalid opportunist prepared to sacrifice the interests of the country in pursuit of his own advancement.

Holdenforth asks the voters – given his unimpressive CV and given the political volatility of large parts of the world – do you really want BoJo to have his finger on the nuclear button? Would you really sleep more soundly and securely were that to be the case?

We have sought to make comparisons between the Brexit tragedy/farce and previous examples of unusual elections – but without success. The only event which suggests a basis for comparison is the tea party described in Alice in Wonderland. An entertaining party, but not an example to be imitated.

What we are facing is NOT a traditional election but the closing stages of a dramatic political farce dreamed up and implemented  by the Tories and, sadly, acquiesced in by the Labour Party.

What about the Labour Party campaign?

Thus far a catalogue of mainly sound commendable policies but put forward with diffidence and confusion.

Let us take just one example of a Labour Party policy thought by the right-wing press to be foolish, and, one which, if implemented, would trigger national financial meltdown.

I refer to the planned return of the privatised monopoly utilities to public ownership.

 “The privatisation of near monopolies is about as irrelevant as (and sometimes worse than) were the Labour Party’s proposals for further nationalisation in the 1970s and early 1980s”

The above quote is taken not from the Marxist Weekly or from a paper of similar ideological bent but from the autobiography of Roy Jenkins a politician not noted for Bolshevik tendencies.

I share the views of Roy Jenkins.

 “In vain did Andrew Neil fulminate against the unrestrained greed of the few which has cast a dark pall over privatisation. Neil rightly noted that the senior managers in the privatised sector were conveniently free from commercial competition and of any effective shareholder control over their activities.”
A Cushy Number by John Holden

Does Andrew Neil have a dark leftie past? I think we should be told.

Sadly the privatised utility sector has proved irresistible to managers recruited from Arthur Daley business school. Far too many of the senior managers in this sector have proved adept at helping themselves to large amounts of largesse whist studiously avoiding making any contribution to the effective running of the sector.

 What about the relative performances of Messrs Dominic Cummings  and Seamus Milne?

Quite simply – no contest.

Holdenforth has no time for either but it would be absurd not to recognise the very effective performance of Cummings and the lamentable performance of Milne in their respective roles.

What about the next few days?

Holdenforth has abandoned its attempts to understand the Machiavellian complexities of the forthcoming election. The latest wheeze is that the Brexit party has been adroitly sidelined by The Tories presumably as per the tactics of Mr Cummings.

In the very brief time remaining Holdenforth will concentrate on the case for a hung parliament so as to enable the Brexit debate to carry on into extra time, to allow the Remainers to regroup – possibly under new leadership, and to enable the UK to remain in the EU.

We have also abandoned our attempts to discern parallels  between Bremain and previous unusual elections. We are facing a Sui Generis election.

 Welcome news

Holdenforth is happy to tip its hat to John Major for supporting expelled former Tory cabinet ministers. Very courageous.

We applaud the attempt of Tony Blair to apply the brakes to the momentum of the BoJo campaign but we wonder just how many people were impressed by his description of today‘s political scene as dysfunction. Quite so – but exactly what can be done about it?.

We accept that Lord Heseltine is on the side of the angels but is he really saying that he would rather risk Brexit going ahead than to accept the arrival of Mr Corbyn in Number 10 on the shortest of leases to allow the Remainers to regroup?

The Last Nine Years Summarised

“Every genuinely benevolent person loathes almsgiving and mendicity”
The Revolutionist’s handbook from Man and Superman by Bernard Shaw

A glance  at some of the more tangible features of life in the UK during the nine years of Tory rule since the arrival of Mr Cameron in Downing Street.

In no special order:

• The proliferation of gambling and food banks and charity shops and boarded up shops and pay day lenders and rough sleeping.
• The proliferation of ghost towns as traditional communal shops are edged out by internet suppliers.
• Much is made in Tory circles of the low level of unemployment. It is worth noting that unemployment has always been at the lowest possible level in slave societies.  The most pervasive features of the employment scene after almost a decade of Tory rule are insecurity of employment and the ever widening gap between the haves and the have nots. Interestingly one sector where unemployment has rocketed is within the ranks of the Tory MPs who demonstrated their discontent with the BoJo bandwagon
• The plundering of company funds by far too many senior managers who toil strenuously to extract the maximum personal rewards.

I could go on but you get the picture, a picture not exactly displaying  the traditional features of a civilised society.

In Conclusion

Despite my earlier strictures on gambling I did make a bet with a walking friend just after the June 2016 referendum result had been announced that the outcome would be that the UK would decide to remain in the EU.

Over three years have elapsed and the outcome has still to be decided. I continue to live in hope that common sense will prevail and that the UK will continue to be a member of the European Union, and that our long standing wager will be resolved in my favour.

Please – oh please – let Mr Huw Edwards – for it will be he –  announce to a breathless nation at 10pm on December 12 that the polls of people who have voted indicate that the great Brexit drama is to go into extra time.

Here’s hoping.

Gloomy Prospects for the Remain Cause

Summary of the prospects based on current independent polls

A possibly apocryphal story about a party canvass.

The story goes that Sir Nicholas Soames approached a voter to seek his support. The voter responded with a tirade of abuse and ending by asserting that he would not support Sir Nicholas if he, Sir Nicholas, were the last man on earth. Sir Nicholas asked his supporting canvasser to record the response as a don’t know.

Let’s get it out in the open at the outset – with just under 11 days to go to the Brexit General Election (Brexel) to be held on December 12  the independent polls –  not to be confused with polls conducted by the parties – are all suggesting a significant Tory majority over all other parties.  On Wednesday, The Times published a Yougov poll which predicted an overall Conservative majority of 68, while as of this morning, bookmaker’s Ladbrokes (usually a good bet for accuracy, if you’ll pardon the pardon) along with the website electoralcalculus.com both estimate a majority of 34. Even the lower figure would represent the the largest Tory majority since that enjoyed by John Major up to 1992.

Not a good prospect for the Remainers given that Boris Johnson has stated that the UK will leave the EU by the end of January, 2020, should he secure a working majority.

Question – Is there any hope at all for we Remainers?

Answer – Holdenforth is based just a mile or so from the house in Pontypool that was the home of the youthful Roy Jenkins. We applaud his vision of a civilised peaceful prosperous Europe within the framework of the EU and its institutions and arrangements. Fortified by his vision, Holdenforth will continue to argue for the remain cause until the BrexEl polls close in the hope of an outcome that that will rule out a Tory working majority.

Sitting on the Fence while Britain Burns

The shaky performance of Mr Corbyn in recent high profile debates with Johnson and others has been a major cause for concern in the Remain camp and in parts of the Labour Party.

His most significant policy weakness has, of course, been his stance on Brexit. Three separate but linked flaws have been highlighted.

Thus:

• His firm policy to be neutral if and when a referendum is called.
• His assertion that he would be leader best qualified to implement the referendum result, whether to stay or to leave.
• His assertion that he would be the leader most capable of persuading a divided nation to unite around the outcome.

Mr Corbyn endured a bruising (his most trenchant critics would say humiliating) interview with Andrew Neil last week, where he struggled to provide convincing answers to a string of questions, including on the topics of

• Labour’s shaky Brexit policy
• Anti-Semitism
• The compensation of the Waspi group, or – Women against State Pension Inequality.
• Anti Semitism
• Return of Privatised Utilities to the public sector

It would appear that Labour  Party managers would dearly love to redact this interview in its entirety.

Sadly the fiasco was all so predictable.

Poor Mr Corbyn strayed out of his comfort zone and sadly paid a heavy price for so doing.

Holdenforth has noted that BoJo, still nursing the bruises from an earlier encounter with Andrew Neil, has wisely opted out of a return match.

A cautious word about alleged anti-Semitism within the Labour Party.

I have been very fortunate in that I have never experienced racialism at first hand. Accordingly I have been startled by the accounts in the media that the Labour Party has been infected by anti Semitism, that the problem is getting worse, not better, and that responsibility for this sorry state of affairs, lies with the party leadership.

Fierce accusations have been made against Mr Corbyn that he has at best acquiesced in anti-Semitic behaviour within the Labour Party and that at worst he has encouraged it.

What is perhaps most surprising is that a man with a long unblemished record of attacking racism has somehow or other managed to allow his denigrators to portray him as an anti-Semite.

Indeed, successive polls of the Jewish community conducted by Survation (in March and October 2019 respectively) found that, in each case, 87% of respondents felt that Mr Corbyn himself was anti-Semitic.

It would seem that his competence as a leader does not match his zeal as a supporter of human rights and a lifelong opponent of racism.

The perceived lack of trust in BoJo.

“Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly they are ravening wolves……….you shall know by their fruits — a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit neither an a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit … Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them”
Taken from the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 7,15

A few tetchy members of the public mocked BoJo when he avoided the questions about his trustworthiness.

Holdenforth suggests that anyone concerned as to BoJo’s trustworthiness should heed the wise and relevant words of Jesus on the matter.

Furthermore, we have it on the word of his predecessor but one as Tory PM that BoJo switched from being a lukewarm Remainer to being the most effective campaigner in the Brexit camp because he grasped that his personal political prospects were much rosier in the Leave camp.

BoJo has spent the last 3 years doing everything in his power to thwart the efforts of Mrs May to achieve Brexit.

In so doing he persuaded many former leavers of the folly of their original preference.

In his brief tenure in Number 10 he has alienated and, in some cases, expelled many former senior members of the Tory Party.

He now trivialises the most significant decision faced by the UK in my long lifetime by referring to this momentous act as simply popping his Brexit deal into the micro and there you have it – job done.

In short – he created the problem in the first place and now he has the effrontery – something which comes naturally to him – to claim that his solution will solve the problem that he had created.

The Holdenforth position on Brexit.

We want the UK to remain in the EU.

Should the outcome of any referendum be to leave we would urge the defeated Remainers to regroup in order to put in place every possible legal obstacle to hamper and prevent implementation

The possibility of uniting the nation around any outcome is at or close to vanishing point. The outcome will be that many tears will be shed and we Remainers hope that the tears will be shed by the Brexiteers

Question – What exactly ought Remainers do to minimise the risk of a BoJo win in the time remaining?

A- Here goes.  Remainers should:

• Use every opportunity to put the remain case to as many people as possible.
• Urge  voters in each and every constituency to cast their vote for  the candidate most committed to the remain cause.
• Cast their own votes using the same approach.
• If in doubt in a constituency with only a slim chance of a Lib Dem win- vote for Labour as this would improve the prospect of a hung parliament, and an opportunity for the remain cause to survive, and for its supporters to regroup for the next contest.

A case study

There are 6 candidates standing in my constituency of Torfaen.

• Plaid Cymru – Morgan Bowler-Brown
• Green Party – Andrew Heygate – Browne
• Lib Dems – John Miller
• Conservatives  – Graham Smith
• Brexit Party – David Thomas
• Labour – Nick Thomas – Symonds

You can see that the double – barrelled surname sector is well represented.

The Tory candidate, Graham Smith,  previously represented my ward and, so far as I know, has no hidden secrets.

Presumably Mr David Thomas will be playing the role of Little Sir Echo to Nigel Farage.

Mr Thomas-Symonds is a member of the Labour shadow cabinet with a sound reputation as an effective law officer and a sound reputation as an effective constituency MP.

My voting record: I have voted Labour in every general election since 1964 (when I voted for Michael Foot in Ebbw Vale) to 2017.

Thoughts on my options

• Tory – no way
• Brexit – see Tory only more so
• Plaid and Green – too marginal

Labour – I had thought that this forthcoming BrexEl might prove to be the parting of the ways for me. As a Remainer about to cast my vote on the most important political issue to be decided in my lifetime – I am and remain dismayed by the lofty neutrality of Mr Corbyn.

That would have left just Mr Miller in the frame and he was very briefly the intended recipient of my vote solely because his party is committed to our continued membership of the EU.

However I re-read my own sound advice to the electorate and Mr Thomas-Symonds will get my vote because this option maximises the chance of BoJo failing to secure a majority. This hoped for outcome to be followed, as already noted, by a Brexit delay and an opportunity for the remain forces to regroup, shape up and get their collective act together.

(Hmm – the thought just occurred to me that if BoJo DOES secure a working majority this could well be my last vote in a general election – the next election would not take place until 2024 by which time I will be in my mid eighties, or, possibly have been called in by the Grim Reaper. In this latter context I  am not wholly persuaded of  the reliability of the Tory promises of top class care for the old timers in the challenging years ahead.)

Closing notes

We, the UK voters, are running out of time. In just 11 days’ time we face  an unpalatable but clear choice between a leave vote orchestrated by BoJo, anxious to pop Brexit into the Micro – with all the appalling consequences for the nation that Brexit entails and an outcome which will allow the Remainers to regroup and live to fight another day.

The results of exit polls will be announced at 10 pm on December 12, 2019 – and these results will trigger  a torrent of tears.

Please let  those tears be the tears of the Brexiteers.

The UK WILL be divided. The only point to be resolved is – how?

In 2016 the outcome was a clear but narrow win for the leavers by 52% to 48%. Not a landslide, but nevertheless a win.

It is still possible that BoJo will not secure a working majority, and thus give the remainers time and space to regroup and to fight again

Here’s hoping.

 

The Brexit Election – It’s Make Your Mind Up Time

As the fateful day – December 12 – looms – Holdenforth would like to get this blog on the road  with a few pertinent  quotations.

“If the Not Sures refuse a pact with the Don’t Knows it could split the undecided vote.”
Yet another masterpiece from the Telegraph cartoonist, Matt.

Senator Muskie to Dean Acheson – “Policy has to be democratically decided.”
Acheson to Muskie – “Are you trying to say, Senator, that the United States foreign policy should be determined in  series of little town meetings…. Don’t ask them, Senator, tell them. When I believe that you will do that, I will support you. Until then, not.”
Extract from Roy Jenkins’ essay on Dean Acheson

Holdenforth supports the firm Acheson stance wholeheartedly.

Timeo Danaos et Dona Ferentes

The Latin words roughly translate as: Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.

They were spoken by the Trojan priest Laocoon to warn his countrymen that the large wooden horse presented to them by the Greeks at the end of the siege of Troy might contain hidden dangers.

For the UK voters about to decide between the Remain or Leave options in the forthcoming Brexit General Election the phrase should serve as a timely warning about the tsunami of promises on offer from the competing parties.

You have been warned.

I write this blog just three days after the first TV debate of the campaign between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn.

The Daily Mail gave a typically unbiased view of the contest.

“Laughable, Mr Corbyn” bellowed its page one headline. For some reason there was no mention anywhere in the paper of the guffaw from the audience after Mr Johnson attempted to portray himself as Mr Reliable.

The verdict of the Mail’s Henry Deedes on the contest: “No doubts at all about who shaded the win.”

(Well – up to a point – as the Editor of the Daily Brute said to his proprietor in Waugh’s novel, Scoop.)

I was depressed but not surprised by what I heard from the two leaders.

From BoJo: “Let’s get Brexit over the line and then we, the Tories, can press on, in line with our time-honoured tradition, of protecting the interests of the rich at the expense of the poor.” Sadly, BoJo was notably coy about his own squalid responsible role in precipitating the appalling Brexit crisis in the first place.

From Corbyn: “We will ask the people to tell us what to do and then we will act as per the instructions of the people”. Dean Acheson would not have approved with the Corbyn stance and nor does Holdenforth.

For whatever reason, Holdenforth was not asked to take part in the proceedings. Had we been given a chance we would have asserted that we want the UK to remain in the EU on the basis of the existing EU arrangements and agreements.

We would then urge all voters to vote for the candidate most committed to the Remain policy in every constituency in the forthcoming Brexel.

How is that for clarity?

The Corbyn Stance

Jeremy Corbyn was interviewed on November 17 by Andrew Marr. Not surprisingly Marr went for the jugular with his first question.

“Can I start with a very simple very important question. If you become PM, when you become PM, do you want this country to leave the EU or not?

Corbyn: “ We’re going to put that question to the British People and they will make that decision.”

From that point on it was downhill all the way as Corbyn tried in vain to defend the absurdity of his policy on Brexit.

 A brief political fantasy.

In the unlikely event of Holdenforth being asked to expand a little on its policy – by Andrew Marr – we would add the following points.

* Brexit is the outcome of the cowardice of Cameron, the fatuous delusions of Mrs May and the squalid opportunism of Johnson.

* In the 2016 referendum Remain voters voted for a continuation the arrangements arrived at after 5 decades of careful detailed discussions through tried and tested procedures.

* Leave voters, misled by the industrial scale leave mendacity churned out during the campaign  by Johnson in his reckless pursuit of power, voted for pigs in pokes.

* Three years later – all of us know how we as a nation got into this mess and, equally importantly, what needs to be done to extricate ourselves.

* Sadly – at this crucial point in our history, the leader of the official opposition has opted for the most irresponsible display of political abdication in my lifetime – and I am in my 80^th year!

(On a peevish note – in the unlikely event that Holdenforth were ever on the receiving end of a Marr grilling we would not be able refrain from asking him if he had taken out any comprehensive injunctions recently to ban any comment on his private life. Get out of that one, Mr Marr.)

Any other recent developments?

“And what do you think, says Joe, of the holy boys, the priests and bishops of Ireland doing up his ( his refers to the Prince of Wales, later Edward the 7th)  room in Maynooth in his Satanic Majesty’s racing colours and sticking up pictures of all the horses his jockeys rode.
They ought to have stuck up all the women he rode himself, says little Alf.
And, says J.J.:
Considerations of space influenced their lordship’s decision.”
Extract from Ulysses by James Joyce – the scene is set in a Dublin pub and the topers are not being especially deferential about the social habits of the then Prince of Wales.

BoJo has been competing with Prince Andrew for space in the in the salacious sections of the press. It has to be said that BoJo has handled this not especially interesting topic rather better than has the bumbling bungling ex-Royal.

The extract from Ulysses – the conversation described took place on June 16^th, 1904 – indicated that the public has always taken a cynical, albeit realistic view of what some of our leaders get up to, although it may have been the case that the view of the Irish on these matters was rather more caustic that the view in mainland Britain. But we digress.

Conventional political sharp practice

“The struggle became less like a battle than a series of single duels. Every man’s soul was required of him. Promises and promotions and  honours were sprinkled from Downing Street on the green benches with a hose…”
Lord Beaverbrook describes the run up to the Carlton Club meeting held on October 19, 1922.  

Allegations have been made by an irate Mr Farage that attempts have been made by Number 10 to persuade some of his colleagues in the Brexit party to stand aside and allow the Tory candidate to harvest all the leave votes. The redoubtable Anne Widdecome has confirmed that she was approached by Number 10 to give the Tory in her target constituency a free run in return for a place on some committee or other.

So what is new? Just ask yourself – what exactly have most of the members of the House of Lords throughout history done to merit their inclusion in the law making process and, more importantly, done  in order to gain access to this most sought after leisure centre for old timers?

Other Campaign Trail Commitments

 The NHS

“What do you think about England – this country of ours where nobody is well.”
W.H Auden: written well before the launch of the NHS

“And then from hour we ripe and ripe
And then from hour to hour we rot and rot
And thereby hangs a tale”
Shakespeare – As You Like It – written in 1600, that is long before the launch of the NHS.

The sentiments by expressed by Shakespeare were valid in his day and are equally valid today.

Both main parties are promising massive increases in the funding of the NHS.

I am not entirely persuaded by the heart-rending arguments to support these increases. However, I am mindful that there would be very few votes to be secured by suggesting that an enquiry be held into the propensity in developed countries for some of the people to be hypochondriacs and / or significant contributors to their own medical problems. Are you, dear readers, mindful of the problem of reconciling accounts of widespread austerity with accounts of widespread obesity?

Labour’s Renationalisation Plan for the rail network

Yes please, says Holdenforth, but we would like to see more of the reasoning behind the policy.

Holdenforth believes that there will be no progress in this contentious sector until there has been a thorough cull of many of the current senior managers: why should we entrust the future of the sector to managers incapable of operating signals and points and of organising time tables?

The sector is currently a safe haven for fugitive graduates of the Arthur Daley business school.

We would like to see HS 2 put onto the back burner for say 5 years or so to allow time for the poor performers at the top to be given  the old heave ho and replaced by managers capable of running the service.

Holdenforth was glad to get that off its chest.

Et Broadbandum Ferentes

Messrs Corbyn and McDonnell have also been promising that we shall all, everyone of us, be equipped with free broadband, which shall be achieved through the part-privatisation of BT. However, while the rail network is clearly a natural monopoly, this position is less clear as regards broadband. With this in mind I consulted someone with rather more experience of the sector, namely my son, Dr Windsor Holden. These are his thoughts on the matter:

“In the last three decades, there is not a single instance – not one instance – of a state-owned telco delivering a service that was fit for purpose. Across the globe, state-owned telcos were not competitive, because they didn’t need to be. They didn’t offer attractive consumer propositions, because they didn’t need to. They were corrupt and incompetent, because they could be. In an environment where, under the fell hand of McDonnell, the stimulus to innovate and evolve will have been shorn away, a state-owned Open Reach will not innovate, will not evolve. Nor will it be hasty in delivering universal broadband, because, well, there will be no pressure, no competitive urgency, for it to do so.

“I have followed this industry, as academic and analyst, for most of those thirty years. I have never before encountered a strategy outlined by a supposedly serious British political party that could cause such irretrievable damage to the telecoms industry; could act as the most profound disincentive to future foreign direct investment in the sector, resulting in a haemorrhage of tech talent to foreign climes; would completely denude the public of choice.

“I have consulted widely with former colleagues on the policy: the near unanimous opinion is that it would be utterly disastrous for industry and public alike.”

You will gather that my son, and all independent analysts, are not exactly enamored of the proposals.

 Climate change

A couple of points to make here:

*We old timers are anxious to ensure that the switch from carbon fuels to renewables is not made too rapidly – we like to be warm in the winter and would not take kindly to having to wait for the wind to blow to put the heat on.

* It is ironic that the contribution of mining operations to environmental problems has been noted. For centuries miners had the most Aegean job of all – whilst the mine owners generally prospered. Now the progressive view is that the mining of fossil fuels should have been curtailed long before it actually was curtailed.

* Plant a tree to save the planet. All very laudable but will this policy prove a winner on December 12? What do you think?

In Conclusion

The Brexit General Election will be held in just three weeks time. By 10 pm on December 12^th we  will have the exit polls and a good idea of the outcome.

Will it be joy for the Remainers or joy for the Leavers?

Some three years I made a bet that the UK would remain in the UK. At that time, I had no inkling that the matter would still be unresolved three years on.

There appear to be just two possible outcomes on December 12:

• A Tory majority over all other parties in the commons which would get Brexit into the micro – the words of BoJo – and over the line
• Any other outcome would trigger a significant further delay but a delay which would ensure that the remain cause would live to fight another day.

My preference for the second outcome is not because of a reluctance to pay up on my  original bet but from a continuing belief in the desirability of the Remain cause.

 

 

Brexel 2 – Here We Go Again

The next important date in the interminably protracted Brexit saga is to be December 12, 2019. On that date – less than 5 weeks away – there is to be a general election – to be referred to in this Holdenforth blog as Brexel 2 – which might decide the outcome of the in/out contest.

Only might decide I hear you  ask?

Yes – only might.

How do you make that out, I hear you then ask?

Here’s how.

First things first. We should all be clear that the December 12 election is a re-run of the general election called by Mrs May in June 2017. Holdenforth referred to that election as Brexel and we shall refer to the December 12, 2019  general election as Brexel 2 since Brexit will continue to dominate politics in the UK until the matter is resolved one way or the other.

We will have a good idea of the outcome of Brexel 2 by 10 pm on December 12 and a much clearer picture by noon on the following day, Friday the 13th – an inauspicious date but one not of the choosing of Holdenforth.

The possible outcomes appear to Holdenforth to be – take a deep breath before proceeding:

* A clear victory for the Tories led by Boris Johnson, an outcome which would trigger our rapid departure from the EU as per the terms negotiated in recent months by BoJo with the EU.

We noted in a previous blog that the terms of the BoJo deal are suspiciously like those of the earlier deal struck by Mrs May but we will put that point to one side for the time being.

* A clear victory for the Brexit party. Mr Farage spoke coyly of the most welcome intervention of his friend Mr Trump into the shark-infested waters of Brexit.

Mr Trump, not the shyest of USA presidents, had advocated a pact between the Brexit party and the Tories to ensure the routing of both the Corbynistas and the UK Remainers.

Who knows what strange political alliances may emerge and vanish in these turbulent times.

* A clear victory for the Labour Party under Mr Corbyn is obviously a strong possibility but if this IS  the outcome – one consequence will be that there WILL be a people’s vote with no agreement at the moment as to exactly the what options are to be put to the electorate.

In any event one outcome would be that the in/out decision would be put on hold pending the outcome of the talks between Mr Corbyn and the EU politicians followed by the outcome of the second referendum.

The Corbyn policy is definitely not designed to achieve an early resolution.

* The SNP, whilst being firmly in the Remain camp, is looking to create the most favourable circumstances to trigger another referendum to determine whether or not Scotland is to remain with the UK or become an independent state seeking membership of the UK.

Some cynical observers suspect that this policy verges on opportunism rather than principle, but Holdenforth disagrees. If you believe – as the SNP believes – that they want an independent Scotland which remains in the EU – what policy could be more reasonable or clear cut.

*The Liberal Democrats – the party greatly beloved by Holdenforth – are committed to ensuring that the UK remains in the EU. If they were to emerge as the governing party their first action would be a request to the EU that the Brexit project be regarded as dead and that the civilised arrangements built up over 5 or 6 decades between the the UK and Europe continue on a business as usual basis.

Holdenforth is sure that the EU would be pleased to note this outbreak of sanity in the UK and that they would send a speedy response to accept the request.

Accordingly we hope that the Lib Dems emerge as the victors.

* Sadly the most likely outcome is a hung House of Commons, further delay, further exasperation within the EU and further chaos in the UK.

What has that key section of the UK financial sector – the gambling sector – to say on the outcome?

The starter has lifted the tape and the various parties have galloped away madly in all directions – thanks to Stephen Leacock for that pithy comment.

At the time that the tape was lifted, Mr Ladbrokes anticipated an overall Tory majority of 2. (The current Tory shortfall is minus 74 – they, the Tories,  have a lot to do to achieve even this modest majority.)

The Others category comprises sacked and/or disgruntled Tories, ditto Labour, plus a sprinkling of absent  Sinn Fein members, the DUP, maybe some Brexit party successes plus Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the newly elected emollient speaker.

The initial polls suggest that the momentum is with BoJo, and this is despite the various problems associated with the indiscretions of Jacob  Rees-Mogg (aka Bertie Wooster) and Alun Cairns, the Welsh secretary. The latter resigned from the cabinet over confusion of what he knew and what he didn’t know about an alleged rape.

Holdenforth also noted that the various parties were out of their various starting blocks with an alacrity that Mr Ussain Bolt would have admired.

Holdenforth advises its readers to consult the admirably neutral reports routinely issued by Sir John Curtice as the Brexel election gets under way.

Thus when BoJo raucously proclaims that the whole electorate wishes leave Brexit with or without a deal, Sir John will gently remind us that this bold assertion may not be well founded in terms of voter intentions.

All the parties are frenetically busy electioneering and the airwaves are creaking with the weight of bullshit that they are required to carry.

Whatever happened to the People‘s Vote?

We at Holdenforth were never quite clear about the modus operandi of those who supported the People’s Vote movement.  We gathered that:

There were a lot of them.

They were sound in that that they wished for a remain outcome.

So far, so good.

Things have taken a turn for worse within the past few weeks.

Thus:

*Boris was telling parliament in raucous tones that everyone in the UK was avid for a speedy Brexit from the EU despite the million or so people from the people’s vote march – all or mostly Remainers –  milling around in the vicinity of Westminster and demanding a second referendum. Clearly BoJo was not deterred by the threat to his plans posed by the very impressive turnout of voters who were and continue to be Remainers.

*More worryingly, the People’s Vote organisation took a kick in its collective bollocks when the well-heeled chap funding the show carried out a purge of senior employees on some pretext or other. A Mr Tom Baldwin spoke disapprovingly about the dictatorial propensities of the Father Christmas supplying the money.

A display of pique that made the Tory and the Labour Parties seem quite well organised.

(Memo to marchers – cut out the marching, conserve your shoe leather and direct your energy into the political process by supporting remain candidates. Imagine the impact if the million Remainer marchers were to park marching, get their act together and put their collective weight and commitment into an effective Remain campaign.)

The Holdenforth Brexel Manifesto

Our policy is the complete opposite to that of the Brexit and even more simple. We will borrow the phraseology used by Churchill on May 13, 1940.

(I was born just 6 weeks after the Churchill speech in question but that point is of doubtful relevance to the matter in hand.)

You ask – what is our policy?

Holdenforth says that it is to urge all UK voters to vote for candidates committed to a remain outcome in the December 12 General Election – the Brexel.

You ask – what is our aim?

It is, as it was in the beginning, is now, and shall remain that the UK should remain a member of the EU.

Anything exciting happened since the Brexel show got on the road?

“Don’t let The Grinch steal your Christmas”
Daily Mail headline, October 30

The Daily Mail was predictably fast out of the blocks as it sought to portray BoJo as Father Christmas and Mr Corbyn as Grinch.

I was not familiar with Grinch and had to check him out: I gather that he is not to be trusted to spread joy at Christmas or at any other time.

Meanwhile, some famous names have changed sides and other famous names have departed the scene completely.

“Labour’s Election Calamity as Deputy Walks Out”
Daily Mail headline – November 7

“The Mail will not shed a tear”
Daily Mail Leader, also November 7

The Mail struggled as it sought to portray Tom Watson as a staunch traditional Labour loyalist and as a man who “sullied the reputations of such distinguished figures as war hero Lord Bramall, former home secretary Lord Brittan and the late Edward Heath as part of a political vendetta”; its leader writer earned his money as he struggled to portray Watson in the mutually exclusive roles of hero and villain.

• Phillip Hammond is leaving front line politics – a sad day for the moderate section of the Tory Party – it does or it did have one.
• Mathew Parris has resigned as a member of the Tory party – see our comment on Phillip Hammond.
• Joe Haines, who was in a previous existence the press secretary of Harold Wilson, has announced to Daily Mail readers that he is leaving the Labour Party citing among his reasons its inexorable swift to the hard left. Holdenforth has noted the reticence shown by Joe Haines about his attachment to the late unlamented Bob Maxwell and to his hagiographic biography of Maxwell. Maxwell was at one time a significant figure in the politics of the Labour Party but his reputation declined posthumously and sharply when it emerged that the portly pilferer had helped himself to significant sums of money held in the Mirror Group pension funds. I long for the time when an inquisitive interviewer asks Joe for his take on this unseemly episode.

We, the voters, can rest assured that is plenty more to come out between now and polling day as disgruntled politicians and commentators seek to inflict maximum damage on former friends and principles.

 

Unprorogued

“Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully”
Dr Johnson

The date of the departure of the UK from the EU was established by Boris Johnson and his minder, Mr Cummings, as being October 31 at the latest, that is in less than 5 weeks’ time.

We draw the attention of our readers to the illuminating comment of Dr Johnson about the effect of impending execution on mental sharpness.

We take the view that similar pressures will now be activating the minds of the key players in the Brexit farce as the deadline date approaches.

Day three of the legal proceedings before the Supreme Court – September 19 – coincided with the final appearance of the great inquisitor, John Humphrys, on  Radio Four’s Today programme. To mark the occasion, two former prime ministers, Tony Blair and David Cameron were interviewed by Mr Humphrys. The Blair interview was a cordial stroll down memory lane.

By contrast the Cameron interview was in the best tradition of aggressive interrogation as Humphrys sought to highlight Cameron’s various failures of judgement and his economy with the truth immediately prior to the 2016 referendum,

For the record Holdenforth thought that Cameron put up a good show in that he was ready to acknowledge his failures and that he put up a good case wherever and whenever possible.

The key points to emerge from the Cameron memoirs – as far as Holdenforth was concerned – were:

• Included in the Cameron list of failures was his error of judgement in agreeing to hold an in/out referendum in the event of a Tory victory in the 2015 general election.  
• Excoriating criticisms of some his former colleagues, notably Boris Johnson. The latter material was of considerable assistance in firming up our views about the many shortcomings of BoJo. 

Holdenforth had observed  that we, the great long suffering UK people, were enjoying  something of a lull in Brexit saga, a lull created as combative and loquacious legal eagles argued before the UK Supreme Court at interminable length the case for HMG and the case against HMG about the decision by HMG to suspend parliament. The tranquillity was too good to last.

On September 24 The Supreme Court delivered its verdict – a verdict that was as unwelcome to HMG – consternation all round in this quarter – as it was as welcome to the doughty fighters who has brought the case before the courts in the first place.

Not everyone was clear as to what had happened and how and why, but Speaker Bercow had no doubts. For him the proroguing of Parliament had never happened and all references to it were to be expunged from the records and indeed were promptly expunged.

He also instructed members of parliament to return to work at 11.30 am on the following day, September 25.

 At 11.30 am on September 25^th  honourable members and right honourable members had all clocked in and were back at the political equivalent of the coal face.

The first minister of the crown to face the hostile questions from the peevish members on the opposition benches was Mr Geoffrey Cox, the Attorney General. He was in the awkward position of having to make bricks without straw and did a reasonable job in the tricky circumstances. Sadly he lost his cool towards the end and used his stentorian bass voice to excoriate the opposition,

He was followed by Mr Gove who had to repeat the tricky task of making bricks without straw.  Mr Gove displayed his legendary combination of evasive skills and commendable courtesy and he emerged from his protracted ordeal with his dignity more or less intact.

Mr Gove was followed by the Prime Minister, his combativeness undiminished after his overnight flight from New York.

Members from all parts of the house assailed BoJo about his recent contentious actions and raucously demanded contrition and apologies from BoJo.

BoJo was having none of this grovelling nonsense. He started as he meant to – and did – carry on with guns and rhetoric blazing. His fiery performance which went on for several hours is said to have startled neutral observers as well as the partisan members of the opposition. 

Holdenforth suspects that much of the indignation on display across the house was wholly synthetic, a series of accomplished thespian performances calculated to impress fellow members and the folks back home in the constituencies.

So –  as of now – what are the main players in the Brexit game up to?

 The Lib Dems.

This group has recently finished its annual conference. It has won the heart and support of Holdenforth because of its splendid clear policy that, if successful at the polls, it will, on day one of Office, announce that the UK will be Remaining in the UK.

No ifs and no buts – there you have it.

Let’s hear it for Jo Swinson.

The Labour Party.

The Labour Party annual conference coincided with the announcement of the verdict of the Supreme Court about the decision of HMG to prorogue parliament.

“So they go on in a strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful for impotence”
Thus Winston Churchill about HMG after Munich in 1938.

Holdenforth believes that the acerbic comments of Mr Churchill could apply equally to the Brexit policy thrashed out by Labour at its conference – a policy which added to the pre-existing confusion.

Every day that passes serves to underline the folly of electing Mr Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party.

Holdenforth fully accepts and is happy to acknowledge that Mr Corbyn has an excellent record of consistency and honesty in his political views.

Sadly the job demands rather more than sound opinions consistently expressed. Mr Corbyn is no more suitable to lead the Labour Party, much less to be Prime Minister, than I would be to represent the UK in the 100m event in the next Olympic Games – and I am in my 80^th year.

When, not if, Mr Corbyn is handed the black spot by his colleagues, the Labour Party should at the same time expel Mr Tom Watson for his squalid role in the Carl Beech affair. Watson’s numerous enemies in the media will continue to try to hound him out of public life – and who can blame them?

 Cunning Farage could yet outfox everyone.

“While Labour and the Tories are tearing themselves apart, the Brexit Party is hovering up disaffected voters”
Headlines above a piece by Alice Thompson in The Times on September 25, 2019

In her thought provoking piece Ms Thompson notes how Nigel Farage is quietly but effectively gathering support for his Brexit party. He continues to target leave voters who have traditionally supported one or other of the two main parties. He is said to be achieving considerable success in his very limited aims.

We have all been warned.

 And now back to BoJo – the name that simply will not disappear from the headlines.

In an earlier Blog Holdenforth asserted that expecting BoJo to behave decently and honourably was  like expecting a skunk not to stink.

The EU authorities will by now be clear that negotiating with BoJo is like trying to grasp an eel in a bucket of snot – a difficult and disagreeable challenge.

Holdenforth has not changed its opinion and has no plans to review its opinion.

However we are happy to take the word of Mr Cameron and many of his former close political colleagues. Quite simply he is not loved and he is not trusted.

We would – indeed we do- assert that BoJo makes the late and unlamented Lord Haw Haw seem like a patriot. BoJo has been throughout prepared to jettison any political policy, any principle in order to advance his own career.

This squalid policy extends to a readiness to allow the UK to leave the EU even WITHOUT A DEAL regardless of the inevitable catastrophic consequences for the UK economy.

We at Holdenforth cringe whenever we hear this modern version of Dr Goebbels assert that the British people want to get the UK out of Europe with or without a deal.

Oh no they don’t, you lying bastard.

(BoJo has suggested that in the coming struggle for power he, BoJo – Eton and Balliol –  will be on the side of the people against the political elite. We had not previously thought of ourselves as belonging to the elite but, for BoJo follows the example of  Humpty Dumpty, “When I use a word – it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”)   

 Mr Dominic Cummings:-

Mr Cummings has emerged, Rasputin like, from the shadows to announce that he, rather than Members of Parliament, is the authentic voice of the people.

Holdenforth had thought that Ras – sorry Cummings- was speaking only for himself, but we live in strange times.

As already noted – in just under 5 weeks time the BoJo imposed deadline expires.

So – how should dyed in the wool Remainers – and we are proud to include ourselves in this category – proceed in order to maximise the chances  for a Remain outcome?.

Consider the following:- 

We, the citizens of the great British democracy, are currently dwelling uneasily in chaos land, and, if we aren’t careful, we may be about to be relegated down into Hades where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Holdenforth does not apologise for this sombre assessment about the future of a UK out of the EU even with the best deal that BoJo can extract from the EU because we all know that the best possible deal will be the one negotiated by Mrs May.

We forebear to contemplate the awful prospect of a no deal exit.

Over there is the EU, a land flowing with milk and honey.

How might we get from where are, avoid  any exit with or without a deal, and Remain safe and secure within the long standing arrangements of the EU?

“The truth is that the difference between representative democracy and direct democracy is a great deal less marked than political sentimentalists assume..”
HL Mencken :- Notes on Democracy

Should Remainers opt to go down the second referendum route

OR

Should they opt for a general election having first ensured that BoJo will not be allowed in any circumstances to flout the rules and take us out of the EU by default?

Our recommendation is that those seeking to Remain should proceed as follows.

1. Select a leader who can offer experience, ability and respect from amongst those available to lead a caretaker government with just one policy – to campaign to Remain.

To start the ball rolling – Holdenforth suggests Harriet Harman.

2. The caretaker government immediately to arrange for a second referendum to resolve the matter.

3. Just 2 options to be on the form: To Remain or To leave on the basis of the best deal available – let us call this the Mrs May deal.

4. The interval between the installation of the caretaker government and the referendum result to be spent in ensuring that the machinery of government continues to operate.

5. Whatever the result of the referendum – The caretaker government then to call a General Election.

Q- Why not convene the General Election first?

A- Because an election which preceded a referendum would be a Brexel anyway, that is an election with just a single issue.

And in conclusion – another extract from an earlier blog

All that we can assert with confidence is that:-

* this epic Brexit farce will not have a happy ending – it will all end in tears.

* The UK will be even more at war with itself by the end of October and the political divisions within the UK, already acute, will be exacerbated by what is about to happen.

* We hope that all those committed to the Remain cause will sink their differences and unite to ensure the earliest possible departure of BoJo and Cummings from Number 10. 

* It is the responsibility of everyone in the Remain camp to ensure that the tears that are about to be shed are shed by the leavers.

 

 

Farewell to Brexit deals – hello to the Brexit phoney war

As I write there are, according to Boris Johnson – and he should know – less than 100 days to go before the UK leaves the EU with or without a deal.

The previous phase in the farce that is Brexit – the phase presided over by Mrs May –  was characterised by a variety of hypothetical deals. We had good deals, bad deals , no deals, raw deals, square deals, new deals,  rehashed deals – and these deals were analysed and assessed and reported on in tedious detail.

The replacement of Mrs May by Mr Johnson has ostensibly brought a new urgency and precision to the proceedings. As noted – the UK will leave the EU on October 31, with or without a deal. No ifs and no buts.

Got that?

Well, to quote Mr Salter in Evelyn Waugh’s “Scoop”  – “Up to a point, Mr Johnson.”

What factors might derail the Johnson plan?

In no special order:

* Parliament may refuse to confirm a no deal outcome. This outcome may be made more likely if, as seems likely, the current Tory majority is reduced  by the defeat of the Tory candidate tomorrow in the Brecon by election.

* Mr Johnson and others talked about a cunning plan to circumvent those opposed to a no deal plan by simply by-passing parliament, but this approach is fraught with difficulties.

These difficulties include the very real possibility that HM The Queen may not be prepared to be a party to this wheeze – Brenda is said to be reluctant to be drawn into any Brexit brawl.

* The campaign for a people’s vote prior to any final decision is said by those organising the campaign to be gathering momentum but sadly if our new PM says no to a referendum then there will be no second referendum.

So far – Mr Johnson seems to winning the phoney war.

And BoJo is just starting to warm up.

 What else might BoJo do to ensure that his Government will deliver Brexit as promised by October 31 – no ifs and no buts?

BoJo would agree to a referendum today were it not for the fact that his leave cause might well lose the second referendum – as per current opinion polls.

So – Bojo and his Brexit team are thought to be working on a Plan B along the following lines.

At the right moment BoJo would call a General Election and the indications are that, under his leadership, the Tories would comfortably defeat the Labour Party. If that were to be the outcome, BoJo could do pretty much what he liked, including, as a last resort, a no deal exit.

How so? Because his victory would enable him to assert that he had the support of parliament for a no deal outcome and, a crucial point, this would strengthen his position in his talks with the EU authorities.

 For BoJo there remains an ominous dark cloud on the horizon

If  – and this is a very big if – all the various political parties wishing to remain in the EU were to sink their differences for the duration of the campaign and  ensure that there was just one committed remain candidate standing in every constituency, then the remain cause might well prevail.

A glance at the campaign issues in the event of a snap general election – a Brexel.

 “It was long ago observed that the plain people under democracy never vote for anything but always against something. The fact explains in large measure the tendency of democratic states to pass over statesmen of genuine imagination and sound ability in favour of colourless mediocrities”
HL Mencken, Notes on Democracy

In 2016 the Remainers knew exactly what they wanted – a continuation of what had been going on for the past 50 years.

The Leavers had no idea what to expect but simply voted in line with the observation of HL Mencken.

This group has had the opportunity to see the chaos created thus far and the likely growth of a good deal more confusion if the UK leaves the EU, with or without a deal – and the chaos will be magnified many times over in the event of a no deal exit.

What about the leaders in the coming Brexit battle?

“Put the two men together in any circumstances of equality and the one would eat the other”
Winston Churchill on the relative merits of Lloyd George and George Curzon

Holdenforth suspects that in the show business frenzy that masquerades as politics these days – BoJo would easily get the better of Mr Corbyn.

 “The prime Minister, (Stanley Baldwin) who has a natural gift for the counterfeit, surpassed himself. He spoke as pilot who has guided the ship of state safely to harbour through stormy seas, past jagged rocks and in the teeth of the buffeting winds.”
Nye Bevan writing about Baldwin at the time of the abdication crisis.

Holdenforth suspects that the Johnson era – hopefully a very brief era – will be notable only for froth masquerading as profundity.

 “It is placing the Executive in an absolutely wrong position to be trailing  your conscience round from body to body asking to be told what to do with it”
Ernest Bevin excoriating the then Labour leader, George Asbury in 1935

Holdenforth suspects that the Labour Party needs to hand Mr Corbyn the black spot if it is to be an effective opponent of the resurgent Tories.

We do not need a Mencken or even a Danny Finkelstein to see that BoJo will shine in any confrontation with Mr Corbyn, regardless of or even despite the gravity of our national predicament.

 BoJo has taken a coldly pragmatic stance in selecting his cabinet. He has decided that his cabinet will comprise at best committed Brexiteers and at worst lukewarm but docile Brexiteers.

These will be in his tent and pissing out of it.

The routed supporters of Mrs May will be outside his tent and doing their best to do whatever they can to derail him.

Mr Grayling will be a sui generis – outside the tent and soaking himself with his own waste products.

As for the Labour Party, there are no indications that the various divisions are likely to be healed in the short term.

One minor crumb of comfort for Mr Corbyn will be that the heavy responsibility borne by Tom Watson for the Carl Beech fiasco may well usher in a welcome period of silence from that most opportunistic and odious Labour Party politician.

The Brexel campaign

We know that BoJo will fight a campaign that combines mendacity with a highly effective targeting of Labour and Remainer weaknesses.

For Holdenforth, the key campaign issue when the Brexel is called is simply this – Can the Remainers get an effective Remain campaign act up and running in the short time that will be available?

 A word in support of Wednesday’s Daily Mail from Holdenforth.

Holdenforth would like to show its appreciation of much of the content of this paper.  Thus:

Very full reporting of the appalling performance of the various senior police officers involved in the hounding of innocent eminent public figures in the Carl Beech affair.

An excoriating piece by City Editor Alex Brummer about the greed and ineptitude of many fat cats in the city. So far as we at HF are aware Mr Brummer is not a member of any Bolshie organisation.

A delightful two page coverage of Brexit which included the following headlines

*  How backing Farage COULD let in Remainers

*  PM claims we COULD stay in custom union and single market until 2012

* COULD Johnson hand farmers a £500 million No deal bailout

*  And just one more, this time from its Leader column:- “Labour, warns Mr Campbell, risks destruction unless it junks its far left policies – and that means junking Mr Corbyn.”

Let us say, for the umpteenth time ,that we at Holdenforth support the curbing of the greed of all the fat cats that prosper in our decaying society – and we note that The Daily Mail, at least in this  edition. is with us in this commendable objective.

Out objection to Mr Corbyn is not personal. It is based solely on the fact that he is simply not up to the exacting demands of the job.

You know it and we know it.

Who is going to tell Mr Corbyn?