Blue tick meltdown as anti-Boris coup fails

To understand yesterday's extraordinary events, one needs to realise that it was not about Covid, but about Brexit. I warned last week that the period until the end of June would be the last-ditch battle of the Remainian forces; the decision that no trade deal is achievable, and that the UK must transition on Australian terms, or WTO terms, will be taken in five weeks. On the one side we have Boris, Dominic Cummings, David Frost and their close supporters and Leave voters and on the other around 40% of the Parliamentary Conservative Party, the entire establishment, the Civil Service, the press and media and the CBI wing of business, the global corporates.

It has been clear for a few weeks that a power grab attempt has been building inside the Tory party. You need to understand, as any member of the party who meets other members of the party understands, that there are essentially two kinds of Conservative. The first sees the party and political power as an opportunity to gain a personal advantage, to use contacts, curry favour, get on the inside track and make money, gain personal power and influence, make business alliances and so on. Then there are the genuinely selfless, who want to make the world, and Britain, a better place for all her citizens, who rail against corruption, injustice and authoritarianism. There is often an uncomfortable match between the two species, which came to a head in our party over Brexit. The CBI wing and their dreary leadership candidate were trounced by the altruistic populists - but they haven't given up, and in the past weeks have been spotlighting candidates to replace Boris. Sadly, their offerings to public and media exposure have also been dreary beyond measure; uninspiring mediocrities, soporific nonentities lacking even a spark of charisma.

The events of the past few days offered a perfect opportunity to mount their coup. Those for whom no trade deal with the EU is unacceptable - the CBI wing - could use the opportunity to dis Boris by targeting Cummings. And a prominent handful did so. They are supported by the dark establishment, the grey men, who have vowed never to allow a no deal Brexit that would hurt the global corporates, and the media, who are defending not just supranationalism but their capture of the State, now under dire threat from the populists.

Yesterday's blue-tick meltdown on Twitter was a joy to behold. They became completely unhinged, and exposed themselves. We now know who our enemies are in the party, and the public know, despite their previous abject denials, where the interests of the prominent media hysterics lie. Poor Boulton was re-tweeting anti-Boris bile at such a frenetic rate that he surely must have dropped a stone overnight.

The Press are in the gutter as far as public opinion goes - never have they been held in such utter contempt by the British people. And like Peston, they have no self-awareness - they simply don't realise that their opinion doesn't matter. We're not interested in their opinions. We have our own.

But more egregious by far was the unrestrained reaction from one of those who have captured the establishment. This is far more serious than anyone is letting on, and though it was deleted within 11 minutes, it will live for decades -

 Hang on tight. The next few weeks will get rough - not Covid, but Brexit.

Footnote
======
Steve Baker is the exception that proves the rule. Steve was a valuable member of ERG during May's demented bungling, but he's really not up to a ministerial job. He believes he deserves one, however, I think, and this frustration boiled over yesterday. Thus proving he really is a bit of a plank.

Deep State moves towards conflict

Few would ever have imagined that the deep State - that unlawful cabal of senior establishment, civil service, intelligence, legal, business and political actors - would ever break cover to the extent that they have in the past weeks in a final Ardennes offensive to try to sabotage Britain's exit from the EU.

Like the Ardennes offensive, they are throwing everything into a final gamble, risking all, including the peace of the country, to maintain their grip on power. We must wait until next week to see what happens to yesterday's display of nationalistic Scottish petulance masquerading as jurisprudence. Oh yes - that's exactly what it was. They have no evidence for the defamatory slur they made against the government - a defamatory slur that would be legally actionable had it been made outside the Safe Space of their McLordships' court - and like mini-me Sturgeons they relied, as the Telegraph tells us, "on an arcane 17th century law originally designed to protect Scotland’s right to self-determination before the Act of Union". This was nothing more than Scots establishment foot-stomping.

More sinister are the actors uniting the Parliamentary opposition in an alliance against the government; parties normally so disunited that they cannot even agree within their separate selves what to have for lunch are now phone-conferencing and mounting a co-ordinated response. Even the police are joining in with advice being solemnly given to the public across Scotland to assemble 'grab bags' of the kind we keep on board our vessels in the event of having to abandon ship. Documents, medicines. Thankfully, this Caledonian panic-mongering been met so far wih public ridicule.

We must deal with this deep State offensive in precisely the way Montgomery did with von Rundstedt's offensive; let them expose themselves in a deep salient that strains their lines of supply until their intentions are unmistakable, then chop them off at the knee. This is an existential battle for a free and independent British nation - and in preparing for conflict, the deep State, the enemy within, normally as invisible as a submarine, is showing itself. They're actually making themselves a target.

The Scottish establishment's national police force invites ridicule