Originally posted 2016-07-29 12:56:04.
The first signs of widespread panic amongst the UK’s hard-right, swivelly-eyed Brexiteers have begun to appear. In our last Friday Politics we pointed out that Brexit, as promised by the triumvirate of swivelly-eyed-ness, Johnson, Gove and Farage, is dead. It can’t happen. Now that realisation has got through to those whose eyes are usually so swivelly they can’t read a Daily Mail headline.
They’ve figured out that they were blindsided (it’s the swivelly eyes) and they’re livid. Beside themselves. Last Friday, probably after he had read my piece, Bill Cash, a person whose eyes are so swivelly we wonder how he drives to work, broke the ranks. ‘Brexit must happen,’ quoth he.
B-b-b-but Bill, is there any doubt? Surely…I mean it’s only been a month since the Phony Referendum…
Bill Cash is a loony.
See, here’s a thing about Bill. He’s a loony, yes, we give you that; it’s obvious from his picture. Especially when he’s not taking his lithium. But you don’t get to be a backbencher as long as he’s been without learning a thing or two about duplicity in Government. (Well, some do. But not Wull.)
He watched with narrow swivelly eyes as Theresa May, a Europhile, was handed the reins of power. He’s a lifelong Tory and he knew what the runes were saying: ‘If you think Brexit is going to mean “leaving Europe” think again.’
Now Bill is so passionate a wee thing that he can’t stand to see his precious flagship — the one that he thinks will tow England across the Atlantic and make it a part of New York Sate — sunk.
So he was the first to bawl out, with a wailing, pitiful diatribe about how the Brexit referendum had to be ‘respected’. It was the will of the people.
Oh really Bill? And if the Scots had voted to leave your precious ‘UK’ would you have honoured that? Don’t bother answering, I know you’ll lie anyway.
Enter Redwood in a lizard suit.
With the literally frothing at the mouth Cash having broken purdah, others followed suit. John Redwood’s eyes don’t swivel. But that’s because he’s a reptilian. If you watch carefully you’ll see his inner eyelid swipe across now and then. Redwood has a stare as fixed and unblinking as well, a thing so reptilian it must be a reptile.
Now why did John-boy feel the need to say that? If the EU referendum called for Brexit, and governments always respect the will of the people, then surely he could just go on back to the Cat and Two Pigeons and enjoy another pint of warm flat Bass.
Ah, but he goes on, repressed swivelly-eyedness getting the better of him: ‘(But) some people absolutely want to water it (Brexit) down.’
Really John? That would be people who actually have the job of managing the UK responsibly, and not backbench lobby-fodder like you?
Swivelly-eyed backbench revolt. Kinda.
Within hours, the Daily Mail had multiplied Redwood’s comment into a full backbench revolution — for which, we should read ‘a couple of swivelly-eyed rent-a-quotes’.
It couldn’t be that maybe, just somehow, there’s a sniff in the air that Brexit won’t happen? That these interventions are a swivelly-eyed attempt to steel Theresa May’s resolve?
Well, these mutts are barking at the wrong cat if they think that’s gonna work. I’ve watched May for a long time now and she is ferociously smart with a hide made of buffalo-leather. Good luck intimidating that one.
Juncker.
The evident panic was perhaps explained by a statement by Jean-Claude Juncker, the distinctly non-swivelly President of the European Commission, on the 26th. He was sanguine — which really should have the alarm bells sounding. Oh, he said, those crazy Brits. Of course they need time to ‘establish their position’. I give the job to negotiate to a guy. He can handle it. But he don’ need even to start till October. Nice holiday.
Umm, I thought the UK position was, ‘We’re leaving, fuck you’. Oh wait. Maybe Juncker figured it out too.
Hard Brexit.
The meaning is in the message. Britain can do a ‘Hard Brexit’ and close down its economy. And of course, Juncker and Europe’s other two Presidents, Donald Tusk and Martin Schulz, will then facilitate Scotland’s entry into the EU as the ‘successor state’ of the by then defunct and absent without leave, ‘UK’.
So, Hard Brexit = a Depression the likes of which few today have ever lived through, and the final collapse, after all these years, of the ‘British Project’ — make the world England. Which will then be an international laughing-stock. Well, it is already, but we try to be nice.
Of course the government that does that will be out of power for, what, 20 years? 50? The Liberals were out of power for nearly 90 after they dropped the ball and Ireland told England where to shove it. And they were only brought back as a makeweight for a disastrous Tory government led by David ‘Tweedledum’ Cameron and George ‘Tweedledee’ Osborne, the most obnoxiously incompetent UK politicians in recent history.(Click to Tweet.)
You know, try as I might, I can’t see a bunch of shameless power-junkies like the Tories signing up for that.
Soft Brexit.
On the other hand we could have a ‘Soft Brexit’. In which we get to do everything Brussels says but we have no power to influence what they say. We still have to pay a membership fee, but there will be no rebate. And oh boy, whoopee-de-doopee, we can have a seven-year moratorium on immigration. Kinda. But only new immigration, the ones here already have to stay. And after the seven years? Well, back to normal. Except, no rebate. And no voice.
And you know, the thing is that they already offered Tweedledum a four year moratorium. So all that for three extra years in which no new European citizens can take up residence in the UK. Three years. That’s all that this pain and misery will ‘gain’.
By which time the UK, by the way, will have ceased to exist.
So in this case, the Tory Gummint gets to give the opposition bucket loads of ammunition. ‘Look’ May will cry, ‘I respected the will of the people!’
‘Yes,’ they will counter, ‘And you left us with no voice at all in Europe, worse off and STILL with free immigration! What exactly was the point? Just to satisfy a bunch of rabid, reprehensible, racist, semi-educated Little Englanders?’
To which, of course, there would be no credible response. That is why Auntie Tess will not be doing it.
The UK is an annoying, selfish pest.
Juncker has every reason to be satisfied. At last, if only the Anglais are stupid enough to actually depart the EU, he gets to be rid of the most annoying, selfish pest in it, while retaining all the advantages of access to the UK market. (You think this free market thing just works one way? Duuuh.)
Yes, the swivelly eyed’s eyes are swivelling so hard they’ll spin right out of their heads, while Juncker and the hated Eurocrats calmly put their feet up on the desk and say, ‘Yeah, whenever. No problem. I have some meditation to get on with while you lot stab each other in the back. Call me when the last bodies have been swept out the door and dumped with Gove’s.’
The point being, they all know Brexit is finished. Auntie Tess was put in to clean up the mess, not to make it worse.