It is not too late for true independence
WRITING a weekly column for a major daily newspaper is not as easy as it looks. The nuts and bolts of journalism require the copy must be with the sub-editors on Wednesday night for Friday morning.
When your country is managing its affairs in a sane manner that is feasible. When it is ripping itself apart on an hourly basis what is germane on Tuesday and Wednesday can be ancient history by Thursday, let alone Friday breakfast. So let me, peering mole-like through the grass-stems, attempt to predict the next few months.
One. The May Plan, actually the May Betrayal, will be voted down by the Commons. It is a bizarre confection that repudiates every promise and pledge we ever received after a clear majority voted for a dignified exit from the tendrils of the EU.
It is not even an exit at all. It is an assemblage of bureaucratic chains and manacles that tie us in to vassalage, or subservience on worse terms than we have now. That is the point, for it was drawn up by diehard EU fanatics inside the civil service who, at an early stage, determined that Brexit must not happen.
Between them they procured the say-so of a gullible prime minister to assign the task of authorship to them and blindsided two consecutive Brexit Secretaries, Davis and Raab, forcing them to resign in humiliation.
TWO. Theresa May has to go. Some papers are full of compassion for her. When a person who has done nothing to deserve it is visited by unfair disaster, compassion is well in order. But this premier has inflicted every mistake, error, disaster and reverse upon herself, despite good advice.
That goes back to the snap election which neither she nor we needed. The polls then showed the Tories had a 20 percent vote advantage. In the worst campaign in memory, conducted entirely by herself, she ran that down to zero and ended with a hung parliament.
She then appointed Stay-In fanatics to every negotiating post. Some others, far cleverer than she, actually secured Brussels’ agreement to workable plans. She has replaced them all with her own humiliation behind their backs.
Sir Graham Brady of the 1922 Committee will soon have his needed 48 letters calling for a change. A less insanely obstinate premier would then act like David Cameron, slipping quietly away into retirement. I fear that, pretending to be strong, she will fight on and lose but shatter the Tory Party to ruins. She is, I believe, the worst prime minister for a hundred years.
It is still possible for the Tories to instigate a smooth, fast, one-week, two-candidate system and effect a leader-change before that alsochaotic Labour Party has woken up. We do not want or need yet another snap election and it can be avoided within our constitution. But it will need high intelligence and military decisiveness. Have got either?
Three. We will all be subjected to a virulent “fear” campaign besides which the one before the referendum was nanny wagging her forefinger. Tame tycoons will be wheeled out to pledge massive unemployment; the Tory mandarins academics will drone on about doom. The EU-adoring establishment, headed by the radio and TV luvvies, will assure us of hell and high water if we dare insist on what we voted for – the restoration of our transferred sovereignty.
We could still have our independence and integrity back under World Trade Organisation rules. Ninety per cent of the world trades under them – smoothly and profitably. Under WTO rules we could negotiate thumping Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with eager trading partners right across the world.
There would, if we pulled from the EU without a deal, be a hard jolt to the economy but for about a year. Then we could forge forward as the EU’s hegemony crumbles. And it will. But it depends on us – en masse. Are we still the people our fathers were or have we become a cowardly, willing-servant breed?
We will know by April Fool’s Day.