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Thursday 7 March 2019

The greatest failure of Statecraft since Suez

If was some forty years before Suez, and not in the heat of the Egyptian desert but in the cold dark of the North Sea that Admiral Beatty commented, as two of his prized battlecruisers blew up at Jutland, "There's something wrong with our bloody ships today". The nation, schooled in an invincible navy, in a formidable fleet, found the losses hard to swallow. Likewise, in a Britain schooled in the notion of a Rolls-Royce civil service, in which the best and brightest in the land devote lives to the nation, and  as highly competent mandarins steer the great ship of state with skill and dedication, we are faced with the abject failure of Whitehall.

There's something wrong with the bastards today. Despite May's manifest stubborn stupidity, despite her lunacy in treating Brexit, as Nick Timothy described, as a damage limitation exercise, they should never have permitted her ignorance and idiocy to plunge the United Kingdom into the greatest failure of Statecraft since Suez, as Allister Heath phrases it.

'Boomer' Cox is a caricature, a character from a Gilbert and Sullivan opera or one of the supporting cast of Mortimer's Rumpole. Skilled neither in this specialist area of the law or in statesmanship, his mission has quite predictably failed. The Commons team of eight legal experts have nothing to scrutinise.

The EU will not move a millimetre because it is their sole aim to damage, hurt and humiliate Britain, a repeat Versailles. In this they are assisted by May's scabrous government and a Parliament that still refuses to accept that a majority of voters, 17.4m electors, sealed a mandate to Leave.

Well, sooner or later they must face the ballot box. Any notion they may have that the public anger at her capitulation, at the failure of my party to prevent it, will be forgotten is naive. We have not forgiven Blair for 2003, nor will we. Our memories are long and we carry a grudge deeply. They will not, they cannot succeed in preventing our exit from a failed EU - we only question how much suffering and humiliation will they inflict on Britain before they realise this. The more they prolong it, the greater the force with which they will be thrown from office.

25 comments:

Stephen J said...

Of course the problem is Raedwald that the "Rolls Royce civil service" will not be facing the electorate, and that has, like Rolls Royce sold itself to Germany.

As the Bonzo's once sang (although I doubt if they were first)...

"It doesn't matter who you vote for, the government always gets in."

DiscoveredJoys said...

Quite so. Our government and civil service are playing by the rules because it is more comfortable for them. The EU is all about rules and bureaucracy - but they are pragmatic enough to break their own rules when it suits them, so we are at a disadvantage.

Leave now with WTO deal and negotiate a relationship later with the rEU from a position of strength. And if they still play silly beggars, ignore them and build trade with the rest of the world.

Scrobs. said...

Of course, you're right, Raeders, the so-called 'negotiations', or some sort of cosy chat over the Darjeeling and Rich Tea was only ever going to be carried out by totally incapable flunkies somewhere in Whitehall.

I don't believe that the due Brexit day will have any effect on the way real business is carried out. Companies will have already factored in the chaos that will ensue in politician's eyes, the gleam of profits made elsewhere is already banked!

Brexit day will be a big fat whimper, just like Big Bang was supposed to engender kids with two heads, and the earth would suddenly become flat!

DeeDee99 said...

The problem with the Mandarinate in Whitehall is that the vast majority are Quislings - fully signed up to the Grande Project.

Never forget that Heath was advised by just such people that he, and subsequent Governments, would have to lie and deceive the British people about the true intentions of morphing the "Common Market" into a Federal Union all the time the process was continuing. It would take them 40 years to understand what was going on and by then it would be too late to leave.

In their eyes, they haven't "failed." All they are trying to prove now, 47 years later, is that it IS too late to leave.

I hope Farage has The Brexit Party fully staffed and ready to roll. We're going to need it.

Anonymous said...

Eminently predictable. After the Russians ruined Cambridge, it made sense to move to Oxford because of all the attention to recover Cambridge. Next on the list will be the likes of LSE, SOAS etc.

Martin (retired - not that one) said...

Thanks, right-write for the Bonzos reference.

However, I'd say that the Europhobic's mentality is better alluded to by "My Pink Half Of The Drainpipe"

Mark said...

Written by pro brexiteers of course, but is this bollocks or just wishful thinking?

Https://brexitcentral.com/deal-no-deal-heres-brexit-cannot-stopped/

I can understand the EU position of absolute intransigence. It cannot be anything else.

The only "compromise" acceptable to them is absolute surrender (which they thought they would get in 2016). Yet the obsession with the so-called "backstop" seems to be what is preventing Treason getting her deal through. It's almost as if they want no deal.

Billy Marlene said...

Somehow, and I don’t know how, this country needs to grow some gonads - and quick.

For all his massive faults. Trump demonstrated his belief in the ‘walk away’ tactic. Dangerous, perilous even. But he has the balls to do it.

With further exposure of amateurs like Cox, our hand loses another strong card. We show weakness. Today we hear that the French Minister for Europe is meeting Barclay and Starmer. Starmer! Who the fuck invited him!

Meanwhile, at the London Irish Embassy we have the Tornsphincter berating Brady for suggesting that our police and military did NOT commit criminal acts by obeying orders. The ‘Troubles’ (and I loathe that term), happened in NI, not The Irish Republic - so butt out Coveney. No distraction politics please, sort your own house first.

Grrrrr........

Martin (retired -not that one) said...

Mark, the EU is one of the Parties acting as guarantor to the Good Friday Agreement.

Whereas the Tories may be happy to tear up any agreement before the ink is even dry - as they did with the referendum "Pledge" to the Scots - the EU have to be more circumspect. The EU negotiators have nowhere to go over this.

May could present a workable plan along the lines of the Richard North one, which would get cross-party support, but that would cause schism in her party, which she evidently considers more serious than wrecking the economy.

Billy Marlene said...

Somehow, and I don’t know how, this country needs to grow some gonads - and quick.

For all his massive faults. Trump demonstrated his belief in the ‘walk away’ tactic. Dangerous, perilous even. But he has the balls to do it.

With further exposure of amateurs like Cox, our hand loses another strong card. We show weakness. Today we hear that the French Minister for Europe is meeting Barclay and Starmer. Starmer! Who the fuck invited him!

Meanwhile, at the London Irish Embassy we have the Tornsphincter berating Brady for suggesting that our police and military did NOT commit criminal acts by obeying orders. The ‘Troubles’ (and I loathe that term), happened in NI, not The Irish Republic - so butt out Coveney. No distraction politics please, sort your own house first.

Grrrrr........

Stephen J said...

Thanks Martian (retired - not that one), but the deluded ones are those that think that not wanting everyone to look, sound and be the same is THE phobia, as opposed to a desire to decorate ones own half of the drainpipe in their own manner.

But more relevantly, sack the painter.

I relish the difference between peoples it is what makes life interesting. I dunno where you live, but in Britain, you can find food being served by people from every culture across the planet... Try that in Italy, where food from the north is never served in Puglia, too foreign.

Mark said...

Martin,

The way the EU is going I doubt if it will be able to guarantee Juncker's drinks cabinet in a few years.

John Brown said...

How it is possible that a UK Prime Minister can be pushing hard for our country to sign a new treaty (the WA) with the EU where the ability to leave the EU, which exists in the current treaty (Lisbon Article 50), is replaced by the inability to ever leave ?

And ensures that this would put us in a very much weakened position in the following trade and “Future Relationship” negotiations ?

How can she possibly say the WA is “in the national interest” ?

Mr Ecks said...


WTO Rules exit 29/3/19 is literally the Tory Parties last chance to survive. A50 extension or any other nonsense equals goodbye BluLabour. ZanU isn't in any better shape thanks to Jizz's betrayal.

The ERG and a few other real Brexiteers will survive and have a chance to begin again--but not if they kiss Treason May's backside and support her evil garbage.

Sackerson said...

@John Brown, @Radewald:

JB says above, "How it is possible that a UK Prime Minister can be pushing hard for our country to sign a new treaty (the WA) with the EU where the ability to leave the EU, which exists in the current treaty (Lisbon Article 50), is replaced by the inability to ever leave ?"

I think our law and constitution mean that any attempt to make Leave impossible in future, will fail, being ultra vires:

"On 18 February 2002, [Lord Justice] Laws [in the Court of Appeal] ruled that EU law could only override the will of Parliament because Parliament had permitted it to do so through the European Communities Act. But there was nothing in this Act , he explained, which allowed the EU or any of its institutions “… to qualify the conditions of Parliament’s legislative supremacy in the United Kingdom. Not because the legislature chose not to allow it [but] because by our law it could not allow it.”

"The EU, he explained, could not overrule Parliament, because ‘being sovereign it cannot abandon its sovereignty’. Parliament might have lent its power to make laws, but in no way was it capable of handing over the sovereignty it exercised on behalf of the British people. If ever Parliament wished to reclaim that power by repealing the ECA, Laws emphasised, it was free to do so." — North and Booker, The Great Deception, p 487

- quoted here: https://www.stevebaker.info/2010/11/the-great-deception/

Martin (retired - not that one) said...

Right-writes.

"Look, sound, and be the same?"

Oh, so it's the EU which is responsible for every McD's, Pizza Hut, Dunkin' Donuts, Frankie and Benny's, TGIF, Coca-Cola stall, Starbucks and the rest, on every town street throughout the EU and the rest of the world, is it?, And for those multiplexes all showing the same Hollywood drivel?

Poor, me, thinking that it was US globalist corporations...

The EU on the other hand, tries to preserve regional culture, from film production to Melton Mowbray pork pies and Cornish pasties, my friend.

Mark said...

"The EU on the other hand, tries to preserve regional culture.."

Indeed, which is presumably why there are so many populist movements springing up. Or is that US globalist corporations as well?

Stephen J said...

@Martin (retired - not that one)...

Don't be crass.

You can't stop globalist companies attempting to become all pervasive, you do have a choice.

My point about the EU (in this context) is that it wants to "harmonise" the people so that they all use the same money, speak esperanto, be deprived of any form of meaningful vote... You can't kick the EU buggers out, you can't even sue them.

So the EU is trying to make it easy for those globalist companies.

Oh... And Melton Mowbray, Stilton and Yorkshire were there long before the effin EU and unless their antics cause a nuclear conflict, will still be there long after the EU has buggered off and left us alone.

Sobers said...

"Oh, so it's the EU which is responsible for every McD's, Pizza Hut, Dunkin' Donuts, Frankie and Benny's, TGIF, Coca-Cola stall, Starbucks and the rest, on every town street throughout the EU and the rest of the world, is it?, And for those multiplexes all showing the same Hollywood drivel?

Poor, me, thinking that it was US globalist corporations...

The EU on the other hand, tries to preserve regional culture, from film production to Melton Mowbray pork pies and Cornish pasties, my friend."

Big State loves Big Corp because its easier to control. Take making new rules on labelling food in restaurants, which is easier - call in the heads of the dozen or so massive chains that dominate the marketplace and tell them 'This is the way its going to be chaps, like it or lump it' or trying to get hundreds of thousands of small independent businesses to comply?

And Big Corp loves Big State because all the rules and regs it produces can be afforded by the mega-corps, as they have dedicated staff to manage them, but can't be by the small independents who get driven out of business, either by the financial costs, or just the sheer bone grinding drudgery of trying to comply with yet another piece of State interference in their business. So competition is cut off, leaving Big Corp to make lovely profits.

Its a symbiotic relationship, the one needs the other to survive.

Incidentally, McDonalds is a franchise, so the vast majority of the outlets in the EU will be owned by EU citizens, not a global mega-corp. Frankie and Benny's is a wholly UK owned and created business, not American at all.

Anonymous said...

This should clear up any doubt about who is in charge and it's not TM

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/03/john-petley-a-german-brexit-a-scandal-of-subversive-statecraft/

Span Ows said...

What worries me is that the EU is patently evil and is so brazen it is making it very obvious to all and sundry that it is EUSSR, like it or lump it...yet many (let's generalise and call them Remainers) STILL want to chain themselves to this rotting - soon to spontaneously combust - corpse. Very short time financial gain for some (just about understandable) but for others just WTF are they smoking?

Raedwald said...

re the link to that gatewaypundit piece - file under 'Huge if True'

The Bruges Group site briefly carried the story yesterday then took it down quite quickly; Breitbart reported on this, but without itself claiming the story was true. No reputable site is carrying it.

Unless someone can produce the documentary evidence, I would be very cautious.

Cascadian said...

Hold on a minute while Amber Rudd sets up the tin can for DisMay.

There, all ready-thats your "conservative" party, thats your "negotiation".

Suez was hubris squared, BRINO is stupidity squared.

Anonymous said...

The story in the Gateway Pundit is pretty much what seemed to have happened at the time. May took orders from Merkel.

This all required a tremendous amount of lying on her part.

Don Cox

jack ketch said...

but for others just WTF are they smoking?

-Span Ows

Right this moment? Tobacco for £30ish for 200g from Adinkerke today.
Only just got home cos the French working to rule as played merry havoc with the ferry times. Mind you it did mean I got to upset all the Brexiteers on the coach "What are grizzling for? THIS is what you voted for; to become a 3rd Nation!" And "hold on , you Tommy Robbinsontypes have been SCREAMING that the French should check every lorry heading out every time"