Robert Henderson
On 15 January Theresa May suffered the greatest defeat of any British Prime Minister when she put the draft deal she has struck with the EU to a vote in the House of Commons. The deal was rejected by 432 votes against to 202 votes for, a colossal majority against accepting the deal of 230.
The bald figures are terrible enough but they are even worse than they appear for the government’s “payroll vote” of MPs holding government office is around 140. These would be expected to vote with the Government. Hence, May will have only attracted around 60 backbenchers (who within reason can vote as they like) to support her draft deal.
This gives May and her government a tremendous problem because ever since she came back to Parliament with the draft deal she has been saying it is her way or the highway as she has stubbornly insisted that no other deal is available and that a failure to accept it could mean no Brexit. As the draft deal she has agreed offers Brexit in name only (Brino) and resembles the type of treaty a defeated enemy who had sued for peace might agree to such is the subordination of the UK interests which according to many commentators would leave the UK as a vassal state. The Commons showed what they thought of the goods on offer and chose to reject them in the most spectacular fashion.
The problem is that May is still Prime Minister . The day after suffering the defeat over her deal a vote of No Confidence in the Government was defeated by 325 votes to 306 . This means that she stays as Prime Minister and the threat of an early General Election has receded. Nor can she face another Tory leadership challenge for the better part of a year because she won a vote of No Confidence in her leadership just before Christmas.
The defeat of May’s deal is encouraging for Brexiteers inasmuch as the overwhelming result should have greatly lessened any thoughts May had of coming back with a few insignificant cosmetic changes made to the deal nearer the 29th March leaving date. However, that is still a possibility and there are many other threats to thwart a true Brexit . If there is a serious breakdown of party discipline there is nothing to stop remainer MPs doing anything they want because the house of Commons consists of a substantial majority of remainers.
There is one bright light amongst this gloom for Brexiteers, namely the fact that the date for the UK’s leaving is fixed in an Acct of Parliament .
Section 20 of the European Union (Withdrawal ) Act 2018 states ‘“exit day” means 29 March 2019 at 11.00 p.m.’
To change the date of the UK leaving the EU requires either an amendment to or repeal of the Act.
While the Brexit leaving date remains unchanged it does not matter what else happens because it places a legal obligation on the UK to leave. Consequently, a second referendum cannot be held, an extension of Article 50 cannot be sought by the UK or granted by the EU and Article 50 cannot be revoked. In addition remainers, however aided and abetted by a remainer Speaker of the Commons, cannot ultimately stop the UK leaving the EU on 29 March.
However, the House of Commons is remainer dominated (around 6o%) and could vote to amend or repeal the leaving date, but there are serious obstacles to that happening.
To begin with it would nakedly expose their anti-democratic partisanship. Ever since the referendum most remainers have constantly bleated the refrain that they honour the result whilst making it perfectly clear that they want to sabotage Brexit. If they alter the leaving date that pretence would be unsupportable because once the date was altered or removed completely from the Act the remainers would be forced to commit themselves to going down one of these paths:
- Extend the two year Article 50 negotiating period, perhaps indefinitely.
- Revoke Article 50
- Announce that the UK is remaining in the EU.
4, Legislate for another referendum on Brexit.
There is also be the possibility of a snap General Election if no one could command a majority in the Commons.
Having their true feelings and intentions towards Brexit exposed will be more than embarrassing for many MPs because there are many constituencies – and especially ones filled by Labour MPs – which voted heavily to leave the EU while their MP voted to remain and has consistently opposed Brexit by fair means or foul. Consequently, leave voters might well punish remainer MPs in leave constituencies.
Brexit did not have to be thought hideously complicated.
Much has been made of the complexity of the Brexit. This claimed complexity is largely down to having remainer PM and a remainer dominated cabinet which looked for terrors where there were none. At best their heart isn’t in Brexit and at worst they are deliberately trying to sabotage Brexit.
If the process pf leaving the EU had been conducted by a leaver PM and a leaver dominated Cabinet most of the complexity would have dissolved. There would still have been a potential problem with remainer dominated Commons (and Lords) but with a government firmly committed to Brexit it is doubtful that remainers in Parliament would have been so blatant in their attempts to overthrow Brexit.
With a resolute leaver as PM backed by a leaver dominated cabinet the mere fact of their existence would have changed the language and progress of the negotiations between the UK and the EU.
Trading on World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules
Leaving without a deal to trade under WTO rules is a real possibility because of both the fast approaching leave date and the inability of the House of Commons to come up with any plan which can command a majority. Moreover, significant numbers of leave MPs have embraced the idea as being the best route out of the EU for of the UK .
There are two reasons for embracing the idea of leaving to trade on WTO terms. The first is that it simplifies matters because it is ready made system and allows business to plan . The second is that it prevents, at least in the short to medium term, remainder politicians trying to sabotage Brexit after the UK has formally left the EU. Nor of course does WTO membership mean that future bilateral trade deals cannot be struck.
The Deep State
The Deep State is often portrayed as a conspiracy. In fact it is better thought of as a blind sociological event. There is no group of conscious conspirators, simply people being groomed to have the same opinions or at least saying they do.
What has happened in the UK (and the rest for the West to varying degrees) is the success of the long march through the institutions. That is what ultimately has given the UK an elite (politicians, mediafolk, teachers etc) who are overwhelmingly politically correct internationalists and its those people who are at the forefront of the attempts to sabotage Brexit.
How did it it come about? A German student leader of the 1960s Rudi Dutschke put forward the idea whereby societies were subverted from within by those of an internationalist bent who would patiently work to gain positions of power and influence. Eventually there would be sufficient of such people to change the policies of Western societies from national to internationalist ones. That point was reached in the UK at least 50 years ago and the politically correct stranglehold on our society is now in full flower.
The capture of Western societies by internationalists has allowed them to permit and even overtly encourage mass immigration of people from different cultures , denigrate their own societies, traduce the West and its native populations generally and introduce gradually the pernicious totalitarian creed of political correctness which has “anti-racism” (in reality anti-white racism) at its heart. The last brick in the politically correct building is the increasingly draconian treatment of anyone who refused to toe the politically correct line , treatment which is increasingly including the use of the criminal law and imprisonment.
That is why Western politics until recently has been so ideologically monotone. Brexit was a revolt against that mentality.
The bad faith of the remainers
The vast majority of MPs have overtly or tacitly supported the idea of the referendum and its result by promising in election manifestos, in Parliament and through their passage by large majorities of the legislation needed to both set up the referendum and make provision for the
By doing so MPs forfeited their right to do anything other honour the result of the referendum. That applies just as much to remainer MPs as leave MPs because the leaver MPs were bound by both the democratic choice made by the Commons and the democratic choice made by the electorate.
Sadly, the behaviour of the most committed remainers with power and influence (including many MPs and peers in the house of Lords) has shattered utterly the idea that the UK is a fully functioning democracy. Rather, it is an elective oligarchy whereby the electorate are offered an opportunity every few years to choose between competing parts of the elite, an elite in the UK whose general political ideas are largely shared by the various competing parts of that elite, ideas which go against the interests and wishes of most of the electorate.
Noe of this should be a surprise. The sad truth is that the central political question in any society is this, how far will the masses be able to control the naturally abusive tendencies of the elite.