Saturday 20 February 2016

Does anyone know what David Cameron means by a "reformed Europe Union"? And has Nigel Farage gone mad?

Yes, I know - as if there weren't enough far better-informed people than yours truly commenting on this issue, but I've been scratching my head ever since last night, trying to figure out what, exactly, is the nature of the "reform" the EU has apparently undergone. Cameron must have repeated the phrase five or six times during his short address outside 10 Downing Street this afternoon. Apparently, the Cabinet agrees that Britain should be encouraged to vote to stay within "a reformed European Union". Well, maybe it should. I have no idea. Because "staying in a reformed European Union" isn't actually what's on offer.

The piffling pseudo-concessions insultingly offered to Britain by the EU to persuade us to stay don't represent any sort of reform whatsoever to this mad, failed, undemocratic, socialist organisation's structure, its aim of creating a European superstate, or even of its most disgustingly corrupt, restrictive and horrendously expensive fiddle - i.e. the Common Agricultural Policy. I repeat - exactly what "reformed European Union" is Cameron talking about? As for his initial statement last night that his triumphant negotiations meant that Britain would never have to adopt the Euro - well, nobody has ever suggested that we would ever be forced to forsake the pound. It's as if, after a brief chat over the fence with one our neighbour, I were burst through the front door to announce that, after negotiations with him next door, we will never have to give him all our furniture and the cat.

How sensible right-wingers like Theresa May and Sajid Javid could have brought themselves to go along with this shameful capitulation is a mystery whose solution will probably only be revealed when some Top Tory eventually break ranks and spills their guts to an enterprising journalist. In the meantime, we can only assume that Cameron has access to a J. Edgar Hoover-style filing cabinet brimming with dirty little secrets about his senior colleagues.

At the time of writing, the two most high-profile Tory nay-sayers are Chris Grayling and Michael Gove (whom God preserve). They both started life as journalists. Grayling was a colleague of mine at the BBC Nine O'Clock News in the late 1980s, and Gove wrote for number of outlets, most notably The Times. I have no idea if this is significant or not, but it interested me. In the unlikely event that Boris Johnson locates his testicles in the next few hours and declares his support for Brexit, then the three main figures in the Out camp will all be former journalists.

As for Nigel Farage, please rearrange the words "past", "his" "date" and "sell-by" into a well-known phrase or saying. If Farage seriously imagines that unveiling George Galloway - one of the most loathed British politicians of my lifetime - as a major ally in the Brexit camp represents something of a political coup, rather than a career-destroying own goal, he really needs to relinquish the leadership of UKIP at once and to have nothing further to do with the campaign to persuade Britons to vote to leave the EU. It was great while it lasted, Nigel - but you've done your job, and it's time to exit the stage with dignity, rather than kicking and screaming.

10 comments:

  1. It's just the plain insult to my intelligence that I find so galling. That this silly little man who somehow managed to con his way into the top job can, metaphorically speaking, look me in the eye and expect me to believe that the whole 'negotiation' wasn't about as fake as Liberace's libel suit is almost beyond belief.

    And yes, Galloway is impossible to stomach. I've read Raheem Kassam's defence of Farage's gaffe and got the strong sense that he didn't even believe it himself.

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    1. Presumably they thought that getting Galloway on board would encourage British Jews to vote for Brexit? Somebody needs to grab Farage - a man I actually admire greatly - by the throat and shout (1) This isn't about you any longer (2) This just got very very grown-up - forget the silly little stunts (and there isn't a sillier little stunt on God's earth than George Galloway) and, (3) we get one chance at this - DON"T FUCK IT UP WITH YOUR SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT!

      Assuming people are idiots, looking them in the eye and lying is the key to PR, and Cameron is essentially a PR spiv. Comes naturally to the man.

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  2. I am not sure that Boris has any problem locating his testicles. They appear to play a prominent role in his personal if not his professional life. He will have spent the last week calculating the odds of winning a post-referendum leadership election if there is a No vote. I suspect he will now come out in the Leave camp at a time of maximum discomfort for Cameron, either today or when Dave makes his statement to the Commons on Monday.

    A man of principle, that Boris.

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    1. Some time later today, according to the BBC. Evidently the penny has dropped that if he gets meekly into line behind Camerborne he has absolutely no chance of becoming leader because the grassroots will never forgive him. (I look forward to hearing why Theresa May has suddenly decided she doesn't want the top job after all.)

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  3. Is it just a coincidence that in a cabinet stuffed with toffs, the three principal nay-sayers (IDS, Gove and Grayling) are all grammar school products? Just a thought...

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    1. Hahaha interested to read blog...what else you remember..I remember Ridegway Place

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    2. Really good point, mahlerman - I knew Gove was a grammar school boy, but not the other two. Perhaps they've all had enough of being bossed around by privileged entitlement princes - in their own party and, even worse, Brussels. Oh, I see Boris just announced he's joining them - I wonder how they'll react to yet another Old Etonian muscling in?

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    3. I remember it well, Wronged Party. It's incredibly smart these days - funnily enough, I recently wrote about it, here:
      http://scottgronmark.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/michael-x-monster-who-used-to-visit-our.html

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  4. Michael Gove attended a state primary school then won a scholarship to Robert Gordon's College , an Independent School in Aberdeen.

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  5. An old school chum sent me the obituary of our head-master, David Emms. He went on to another school, Dulwich College, in 1975 where he came across Nigel Farrage. This boy was "a trouble-maker and an alleged purveyor of racist remarks" and spent his life "winding up left-wing members of staff" . Because of his cheek and naughtiness and general bloody-mindedness everybody wanted him expelled so Emms made him a prefect instead and he was a very good one apparently. Two fingers to the proto-PC brigade.

    Old Nigel is obviously just a general shit-stirrer and has apparently reached the limit of his ambition. He signalled this when he appeared with "the wee baldy nyaff" and his eccentric indoor velure hat. I think he is trying to look like the lead singer of Manhattan Transfer or the late Maurice Gibb of Bee Gees fame. Anyway, the Indefatigable One has given Nige a thumping great "Il bacio della morte" [ sorry, Mr Raphael, it's catching].

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