MAY TOILS AND BLAIR STIRS.

Teresa May's latest pleas to the leaders of the European Union appear to have fallen on stony ground. Indeed, the likes of the high and mighty Jean Claude Juncker have simply refused to come down from their ivory tower, or is it climb out of their concrete bunker ?

While May toils away in Brussel in what seems a fruitless attempt to gain any meaningful concessions from the most pig headed bunch of bureaucrats to exist since Europe's leaders sent millions of men to their deaths in the trenches of World War One, arch egotist and Europhile Tony Blair has been hitting the airwaves.

Not a man to fail to promote his own image and importance at any and every opportunity, Blair has surfaced this morning to reiterate his calls for a second referendum although, in typical Blair fashion, he doesn't call it a referendum; he uses every word or phrase other than referendum. Unlike most, if not all past Prime Ministers, Blair refuses to fade into the background but instead has spent the last decade or so trotting around the world as some sort of Messiah, offering to resolve problems and deliver words of wisdom. Heaven alone knows what he was paid to sort out the difficulties of the Middle East when he was the representative for the so-called Quartet in that area, but his total lack of achievements speak for themselves. Blair is a man long on words and his own brand of wisdom but very short on achievement. Anyone who wants proof need only look at the end product of his tenure as Prime Minister, which was never ending conflict and near bankruptcy.

As an arch-Europhile, Blair held hopes of becoming the first President of a United States of Europe, a hope that was dashed by the UK's unexpected vote to leave the EU. Having had his ambition so bitterly interrupted, Blair turned his attention to trying to convince people of the error of their ways and has enthusiastically championed the cause of Remain ever since. By hook or by crook, Blair will somehow get that top European job, or so he still hopes.

How anyone can take this man seriously is a mystery. A rich, now super-rich, supposed socialist from a privileged background, Blair led a government that was so profligate that, when a crisis occurred, there was nothing left in the coffers with which to fight it; the result was the printing of vast quantities of paper money which had no assets to support it, and a consequent depression of economic growth for year after year. Even now, we are suffering from the effects of Blair's years in office. Additionally, Blair, who now talks about the lies and untruths told by Brexiteers, lied through his teeth about the situation in Iraq and misled Parliament and the nation over his determination to go to war with that country in support of his pal, another arch-egotist, George W Bush.

  

Blair is a man who puts his own interests and what he sees as his place in history far above any other considerations, That he is so ardent when it comes to the UK remaining in the European Union should serve as a warning to all of us. If Blair wants us in, the best place to be has to be OUT.

MAY SURVIVES BUT TO WHAT PURPOSE ?

So Teresa May has survived, temporarily at least. She managed to get 200 of her fellow MPs to support her favour in a confidence vote while 'only' 117 voted to remove her. What next ?

Perhaps significantly, around 140 of those who supported Mrs May are members of the extended government or are otherwise dependent upon her for their positions; in other words, only about 60 back bench members of the Party supported her. With more than a third of the parliamentary party openly opposed and another fifth offering dubious support, May's authority must now be all but gone. She is at the mercy of her Cabinet colleagues in the first instance and at the mercy of at least the 117 thereafter. Despite MPs being unable to call for another vote of confidence for a minimum of 12 months, matters could easily force her out of office within a much shorter period of time.

Regardless of all this turmoil, Mrs May has trotted off to Brussels to have more, probably pointless, talks with EU leaders. Suggestions of adding 'clarifications' to various elements of the withdrawal agreement seems little more than window dressing and would have no real effect; those in Parliament who simply find the agreement unacceptable will hardly find EU 'reassurances' of any value. 

Yesterday's events gave Mrs May a little more time though even that is now limited; in order to win the vote of confidence, she agreed to step down from the leadership of her party before the next general election, scheduled for 2022. What happens if the government falls and an election occurs earlier is an unknown quantity. Other than this concession on her part, nothing has really changed. The withdrawal agreement has no chance of being approved by Parliament as it is and the EU has made it clear that they will not change it any way. It seems highly unlikely that 'clarifications' or 'reassurances' from the EU will do anything to encourage opponents of the agreement to change their voting intentions and the House of Commons will almost certainly reject the agreement in a vote at some time in the next month or so. Once that happens, all bets are off.

Labour will surely then call for a vote of no confidence in the government which they might well win. If they do, a general election will be the result, quite possibly accompanied by a delay, at least, in the UK's exit from the EU. Exactly how the parties would line up and what their manifestoes would say, heaven knows.

A Labour government following such an election would, apparently, want to renegotiate all over again, something which the EU has already ruled out, or has it ? If the Conservatives were to win such an election, would our 'representatives', elected with new mandates, then vote for a deal which they despise or would they carry on ignoring the expressed Will of the People ? 

If Labour loses the no confidence vote we would be left with the situation as now, with Parliament paralysed and looking for a way out - a second referendum would then loom large. Would the result of a second referendum be accepted by all, or would those who don't like the answer, whichever way it goes, carry on the fight ? 

We really are in a terrible mess. Incompetence from Mrs May and her Brexit negotiators has brought us to an impossible position. The UK is effectively being held to ransom by the Republic of Ireland which is pursuing its own political ends and by the EU negotiators who want to make us pay for having the temerity to leave their little club. 

I see no way out. We are heading for a general election and the strong possibility of Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street, GOD HELP US.

MAY AND BREXIT ON THE BRINK

So, finally, 48 Conservative Members of Parliament have submitted their letters and there's to be a vote of confidence in Prime Minister Teresa May. At about 9pm tonight, we will discover the real level of support which she commands within her party.

There is much analysis, comment and general noise in the media with huge amounts of speculation and 'what if' discussion, but the simple fact is that it's all pointless drivel until the result of the vote is known. If Mrs May loses, the Conservative Party will immediately begin the process to elect a new leader; if she wins well, she will stay in office and survive for at least another 12 months. If she wins, but with substantial votes against her, she may be forced to resign in the coming days. What does all this mean for Brexit ?

Again, the simple answer is that no one knows until after the vote and even then it may be several weeks before anything happens. Mrs May's 'Deal' has no support in Parliament and is highly unlikely to be voted through whoever is Prime Minister; she has no stated 'Plan B', so chaos will ensue. A new Prime Minister may make noise about renegotiation but the reality is that the EU is holding firm; there will be no renegotiation. 

We are left with a 'Deal' that has no support, no 'Plan B' and no renegotiation - that seems to add up to only 2 options - 'No Deal' or 'No Brexit'.

BREXIT 'DEAL' NOTHING BUT BELGIAN FUDGE.

Is Teresa May a saint or sinner ? It's hard to tell from the assorted stories now emerging about the supposed 'deal' reached between the UK and EU last week.

In truth, it seems likely that the 'deal' was little more than a political fudge, capable of being interpreted according to the prejudices of the reader. Agreement over the Irish border question, a problem which would almost certainly be on a par with the 19th century's 'Schleswig-Holstein Question' in its incomprehensibility, is absolute according to Irish politicians but not according to the UK's Brexit minister, David Davis. The UK has agreed to cough up something like £37bn according to some but more or less according to others; the rights of EU citizens living in the UK, and UK citizens living in the EU have been protected or are still open to debate even though some nebulous nonsense has been agreed. As has been said by some, 'Nothing is agreed until all is agreed', so what is really going on ?

Both the UK and EU were actually desperate for an apparent agreement on Phase 1 of the Brexit negotiations to enable progress to Phase 2, the all-important trade negotiations. Consequently, both sides had an interest in being able to present some sort, indeed any sort, of deal last week and the fudge was the best that could be found (keep in mind that the Belgians do make excellent fudge !). Whatever the rhetoric spouted by the representatives of either side, the only thing that really matters to the makers of German, French and Italian cars, French, Italian, Spanish and German wines, French cheeses, Italian and Greek olive oil and lots more, plus the owners of hotels across the continent, the Spanish, Italian and Greek holiday industries and the purveyors of vast quantities of meat and vegetable produce across the continent, is a trade agreement that avoids disruption and potentially catastrophic effects on their livelihoods.

The UK has an enormous trade deficit with the EU, that is the UK buys much more from EU member countries than it sells to them. Ergo, the EU has a huge vested interest in maintaining a good trade relationship with the UK though it also wants to discourage other states from thinking of having their own exit plans - Grexit, Spexit, Frexit are simply out of the question. Therefore, the EU's negotiators have been making all manner of unfriendly noises towards the UK while secretly knowing that the UK has a much stronger hand than is publicly stated; perversely, the UK's government appears to have also followed this line, "Why ?" is a major question that no one seems willing to address.

 

The good news is that talks will now move on to trade, the bad news is that progress is likely to be every bit as tortuous as before, with much huffing and puffing, much rhetoric and little substance until, that is, we reach the point at which a deal must be done for fear of there being no deal; that, of course, is a scenario that the EU dreads above all else. The UK simply needs to hold its nerve and it will get the deal it wants. The question is whether it has the stomach for the fight.

Ding-Ding : Seconds Out, Round 2 !

Btw, the 'Schleswig-Holstein Question' was about the complex relationship between 2 European duchies to the governments of Denmark and Germany. The one-time British Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, was reported to have commented : "The Schleswig-Holstein question is so complicated, only three men in Europe have ever understood it. One was Prince Albert, who is dead, The second was a  German professor who became mad. I am the third and I have forgotten all about it" 

TRUMP IS RIGHT ABOUT CHARLOTTESVILLE.

For once, Donald Trump has got it right, although the politically correct masses, unfortunately including our own Prime Minister Teresa May, aren't prepared to say so.

The recent events in Charlottesville were awful but to place al of the blame on 'the far right' or 'white supremacists' is simply to ignore the facts. It always takes 2 to make a fight and, in Charlottesville, there were 2 sides representing, it seems, what some would see highly simplistically as the good guys and the bad guys.

In such scenarios, the 'bad guys' are always those of a politically right wing persuasion, be that 'extreme' or just strongly conservative. The 'good guys' are those of the left, regardless of how extreme they themselves may be. More often than not, or so it seems to me, it is the left wing 'rent-a-mobs', claiming to occupy the moral high ground and supposedly defend liberty, democracy, the 'disadvantaged' or next door's cat, that start the violence. These avowed defenders of democracy are more than happy to deny free speech and expression to anyone who they brand as 'extreme right', racist, Nazi and a hundred other things.

Most politicians, now not including President Trump but certainly including Prime Minister May, refer to right wing groups as Nazi whether or not they actually are and without having any knowledge of what Nazism was or is. They use the term simply as a means of getting on the 'right side' of the political debate and being seen to be in tune with modern liberal thinking. Shame on them.

Whatever the fine details of what happened in Charlottesville, it is a racing certainty that there were as many violent thugs claiming to be 'the good guys' as there were violent thugs branded as 'the bad guys'. The simple truth is that they were all thugs and all bad guys. Teresa May seems to not understand this at all, having said "I see no equivalence between those who propound fascist views and those who oppose them" Really ? Does she really believe that violent thuggish behaviour is fine when initiated against 'fascists'  but not when directed at communists ?

The issue in Charlottesville was not to do with propounding views, it was all to do with thugs fighting other thugs. All those involved, left, right or centre, were equally culpable and it's time that our politicians grew some balls and said so, just as President Trump has done.