Is This The Week?

As we can all see, something fairly whacky is going to happen in British politics this week. 

Up until now, Corbyn has been fairly disciplined in the marxist tendency's determination to avoid R2, and I'd formed the view it was likely to stay that way.  But I'm beginning to wonder.  Is this the week he flips, in an attempt to avoid humiliation at the hands of the Lib/Greens?  There will be no end of Starmers and Watsons pushing that line, even while his marxist-brexiteer handlers continue trying to stiffen his resolve.

And anyhow, is it too late?  The Graun is full of BTL threads giving the impression that's the case.  And quite a few postal votes will have been cast already.

ND

The ides of March come early for Brexit

"Et Tu, Jeremy?"

And so, as long predicted by myself, Parliament is rapidly waking up to its true purpose. To end the horrid charade of Brexit once and for all.


As yet, there are only still the quiet whispers of betrayl. Brexit stands on the statute book as Caesar once stood in the senate. Proud, Loud and maybe a little naïve.


But the enemies gather, Jeremy Corbyn, a true friend to Brexit, has been forced the by disintegration of his party, into being bounced by the evil Keir Starmer (he has conspired with the enemy throughout the negotiations) into the position of seeking both a 2nd referendum and to campaign for remain in that referendum.


With Labour gone, only the ERG stand with the DUP in Parliament in favour of any sort of Brexit. Between them they have maybe 100 votes versus 450 or more.


So it is over. Parliament will vote against no deal, and/or vote for an extension lasting years or more and the whole process will be over. People are bored and the momentum behind leave will be left as a dangerous sore in UK politics. It seems quite likely Farage's party will rise up in the polls for the disaffected but to what end who knows as yet?


May will be happy, she has one last chance to get the ERG to vote for the Withdrawal Agreement and failing that she can sail off on the good ship remain, saying she did her best and the 'nutters' were intransigent.


If I were in the ERG I would vote for the Withdrawal Agreement, for its floors it does still meets the test of being a Brexit and moves the UK off the path of further EU integration. However, the bellicose and frankly stupid ERG members I think will opt for the happier ideological place of feeling betrayed by the murderer's of Brexit and blaming others for their own failure, forever. Weirdly they may revel in their own 'stab in the back' narrative, which they think will bring solace rather than danger.


Of course, I say Brexit is doomed, but then so riven too will be the body politic in the UK for a generation or more. Only a few weeks now until the new dawn, that will include, rightly, the end of the Tory party and from a perspective of the business position of the UK, the end of any party that supports capitalism having a chance of power for generations. There is no way the Tories can survive calling referendum and then cancelling Brexit - they are done. May has destroyed them. None of their replacements will be free market in principle, all will be either socialist or nationalist in beliefs. That is a big shame for the long-term future of the Country, as socialism will mean a more structured and higher tax economy that will reduce our dynamism.


 Perhaps in decades to come, poor economic performance will lead to the resurgence of free market beliefs, but looking to the EU and the US, this feels unlikely to be the actual future.

No Lunch for Labour

Labour's Brexit strategy?  ... actually, they haven't got one.

At best, it's just a glorified vulture-tactic: circle aimlessly, high above the ground, in the hope that something keels over and dies under your nose.

Reading a range of leftist contributions aroud the www, the only sub-group with a clear slogan are the ones who want R2.  But Labour commentators who see just a few tiny problems with R2 - as anything that might benefit Labour specifically, or even as just a genuinely practical proposition - see things in a much more problematic light.  Try this, from Little Owen Jones, for example.  OJ's pieces of late have become highly structured masterpieces of equivocation.  Each time he writes, he has to go through the ritual of praising Corbyn to the skies - his punishment for having dared to doubt the master for just a very few weeks last year - and mapping out just how awkward everything is.  But, whisper it softly, he is gradually becoming less sycophantic in substance, his regular and well-argued conclusion being: there might not be much here for us.  It's not greatly different from a host of other writers on the left, who are all enjoying the spectacle of the Tory and DUP lions and hyenas scrapping; but are otherwise pretty much reduced to wringing their hands.  Oh, it's all so difficult to know what to do.

Yes, the vulture doesn't actually have to do anything as dynamic and skilful as hunting something down and despatching it.  You could see why that counsel of idleness suits a perennially work-shy git like Corbyn.  Less obviously, even the hard-driving McDonnell is also given to waiting and watching - because he's a marxist, whose belief-system is that it is all going to turn out right on the night, courtesy of the Hand of History.  He's sure he'll eventually find something dead on the veldt - the bloated body of capitalism, to be precise - on which the proletariat can gorge.

The lions and hyenas have to do something pretty stupid for this to be the outcome.  Some of them have fairly few brain cells, it's true.  But they operate in prides and packs, the collective wisdom of which is probably adequate for the task of ensuring no lunch for the vulture.

ND

Thoughts needed; What do we need to do to stop a rigged referendum?

Fast coming up the aisle today is the failure of May's agreement in Parliament.


There are too many Tory rebels, too few Labour rebels, hatred from very different angles by the various nationalist parties (including Lib Dems in this group as  EU Quisling/Vichy nationalists) for any vote to pass.


As such, the Tories are going to be very reticent to force and General Election on the back of a confidence vote  - but that may come about.


The DUP, surely, will not make the Government fall in order to get the Irish Nationalist supporting Corbyn as PM - if they think Brexit is bad news for them....


So then we will be at the point where another referendum, which not long ago I bet money on not happening (!), will come to pass.


And here is where the remainer game is, in referendum you need a decisive result, so the two options the remainers will get is this:


A) Leave the EU with May's Withdrawal Agreement
B) Remain in the EU


May will agree to this as she will think A) vindicates her position and she can win. B) Pleases remainers and is May's preferred option to no deal.


For the country as a whole, it is a disgrace as it is a classic EU stitch up to which Barnier, Weygand and Selmayr will say the following -


"Here English plebs, is your choice between two things that you don't want. If you choose not to participate then, ha!, you don't really believe in democracy after all. So now vote and betray yourselves you racist scum..etc etc."


There is a decent chance of the above happening and the ERG folk have shown themselves not competent to oppose this (they would not have the votes in parliament to stop this bill for a start).


What can be done if this comes to pass...thoughts welcome in the comments.