Nemesis of the haute-remainers - John Gray

Today is yet another crunch day for Brexit. So many crunch days for Brexit have come and gone that I am not getting excited; either the Commons agrees an election and the EU deigns to allow an extension, or something else happens. 

It's always good to take the chance to step back and look at the bigger picture. The Telegraph is absolutely right today in drawing attention to an essay in New Statesman America by John Gray. As the unfortunately-acronymed NS is core leftie-thinking fodder, it will be uncomfortable reading for many of those Gray terms 'haute-remainers' - the Blairs, Adonises, Grieves and others. I commend it to you.

I have said all along that Brexit was not primarily about the EU but about a wider democratic correction in the UK that re-balances power away from an establishment elite* and back to the voters. This year the BBC, in a rare act of political prescience, featured Reith lectures by Lord Sumption covering the effects of State capture by this political elite on the relationship between law and democracy. Gray's focus is the way in which the Conservative Party has reacted and changed, as it has throughout its history, to ensure it comes through intact. The same cannot be said of parties embracing the haute-remainer cause.

Gray's essay is too crammed with succinct and tight analysis to usefully select any single paragraph to quote summation, so here then, as a sample of the essay rather than a precis, is just one -

The haute-Remainer mind is an example of what the 20th century’s subtlest and most original conservative philosopher called political rationalism. Michael Oakeshott (1901-90) used the term to describe totalitarian ideologies such as Leninism and National Socialism, but he was clear that any kind of political tradition could succumb to rationalist ideology – including conservatism. (His own version of conservatism – an ultra-liberal variety, in which the ideal role of the state was that of an umpire – itself did.) The core of rationalism in politics is an idea of politics itself. Rather than being a practice in which people negotiate the terms on which they co-exist with one another, politics means the imposition of an idea. The idea is self-evidently true; anyone who questions it is ignorant and stupid, or else wilfully malignant. Though they claim to embody reason in politics, haute-Remainers cling to a view of the EU in which facts are secondary or irrelevant. They fulminate on the dangers of Brexit without ever mentioning that Paris has been convulsed by riots while Barcelona has become the scene of mass demonstration, burning streets and police violence. No mere fact can be allowed to cloud the vision of a sacred institution.

Let's see what the day brings.  

* E.g, at random, from 8/4/2010, and in many scores of posts before and after ..

"The Downfall of the Political Class
The public have been way ahead of the moribund old parties on this; we've been sick of the loathsome political class for some time. This hasn't stopped either party from fielding blow-in dags who have no experience other than politics or political organising for seats in the next Parliament, but their time too will come."

Politics in turmoil - conditions favour the extremists

WE have had an unequivocal assurance from Mrs May in the past few days that there will not be a second Brexit referendum. Of course, that means nothing. Mrs May's past assurances on the Customs Union, free movement and ECJ jurisdiction have been over-ruled by the elite establishment, and today no assurance from her on a second referendum means anything unless confirmed by Oliver Robbins. 

The BBC is giving much airtime to anyone calling for a second referendum at this time because the polls have been swinging towards 'Remain'. However, the polls are close and erratic, and could easily shift back. The most recent, from 14th July by Deltapoll, shows 50/50 but this could be a rogue. 

 Yougov however cautions against relying on polls re-asking the referendum question;

However, just because people think Brexit is the wrong decision, it doesn’t necessarily mean they think it should be reversed. They do not. When we ask what people think the government should do about leaving the EU, just over half (53%) think that it should go ahead with Brexit, mostly on its current course (42%) though 11% would prefer a softer Brexit. A fifth (21%) think that the government should call a fresh referendum instead, while 13% would prefer them just to halt Brexit altogether.

Neither is there much support for other means by which the decision to leave the EU could be reversed. By 50% to 29% people think it would be illegitimate for MPs in the House of Commons to vote against Brexit going ahead, and by 45% to 37% people oppose the idea of another referendum once the terms of the withdrawal negotiations are known.

With confirmation that Vince Cable has been in talks about a new Limehouse Declaration to save the rapidly dying LibDems, offering a broad leftist Remainer umbrella, there is also a poll suggestion that a new pro-Brexit party could get 38% of the vote and rumours that Nigel Farage is in funding discussions to form such a party to attract both Conservatives and the lighter mauve UKIPpers.

A new far-right authoritarian anti-Islamic party could, frighteningly, attract 24% of voters from deep purple Kippers and those with a ' British National Party, National Front, British Freedom Party, British People's Party, English Defence League, Britain First or the UK First Party' background - currently 'banned' from UKIP. Cough cough.  

And with confirmation expected today that Labour will officially go anti-semitic and all the little lefty Nazi Corbynistas can trample the Star of David, the old parties are hardly helping to preserve political stability. 

'Turmoil' I think is the word. 

Miliband the Bottler crawls back - the first of many

David Miliband, the man termed a 'coward' by journalists for getting the press all excited about challenging Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership and then bottling it, has crawled back to the UK from his 'charidy work' in the US hoping no doubt to win a place leading a new left-centre party without having to fight anyone for it. Their rallying point is to reverse Britain's democratic decision to leave the EU. But then he was a man scorned as a popular brand of seedless orange - a reference to his lack of fertility rather than his faith, I gather.

Meanwhile, those on the exit side who currently have no option other than voting Conservative or not voting at all are watching carefully for the emergence of a new pro-Brexit party before 2022 for whom to cast a ballot. Nothing too right-wing - neo-Thatcherite would do nicely. With a little clear water between the new party and the politics of race-hate that characterises those scorned as 'Gammons' by the new left (who in return, it's fair to say, are termed 'Soy-Boys'). Racists in need of a home can always try one of the far-right clones on offer - I think there are currently two, but I may be mistaken. Neither will win anything, but their members can console themselves with the racial purity of their votes or something.  And I know some of you will give me a kicking for that - but I feel obliged to re-state from time to time that I support a distinct British identity open to anyone of whatever colour, creed, sex or faith, that I am utterly hostile to ideologies inimical with Britishness but welcoming to any minority persons wanting to join the club.  

New parties of left and right may rise, but they will also become subsumed into our parliamentary duopoly. Or rather 2½ party system. It all comes down to votes - the blue party now needs to consolidate Hovis-land and the red party needs quinoa-chewers and Waitrose-shoppers. 

Does this mean the poles are about to flip? That the Conservatives, traditionally the party of the South-East of England, becomes the party of the Midlands and North, whilst Labour deserts its Northern heartlands and settles-in within the M25? Interesting.

So of course we'll see all the dags, liggers and chancers such as Miliband drifting back; prepare for names and faces you haven't seen for a decade or more suddenly doing interviews on 'Today' or popping up on 'Newsnight'. We're in for another of those major political re-alignments. Now is the time for the millionaires and billionaires to place their stakes and buy their players, currently on options contracts of course until Brexit pans out a little more.  

One thing is certain; those of we polemicists who subside on a mix of satire and cruel invective won't be short of targets for a year or two.