Saturday 16 March 2019

The Tides of March

Of course there are only 350 people on the March to Leave, fewer than would turn out to oppose an unwanted road scheme in any country town. Look who is leading it. That it has been left to those people is why Brexit will either happen on Theresa May's atrocious terms, or it will never happen at all.

As for the claim that right-wingers characteristically do not have the time for demonstrations, I am not sure that that "usually busy" thing still holds, if it ever really did. Young right-wing activists these days are among the most unemployable people that you could ever meet. Very well-read and often quite personable. But never going to get a proper job. They are certainly free on a Saturday. Yet where are they today?

I am not predicting anything, but I am increasingly inclined to suspect that Brexit will pass on May's terms, if not next week, then the week after that. She has allowed Liam Fox to announce zero tariffs in the event of No Deal, in the full knowledge that Conservative MPs have now gone home to constituencies where largely farming electorates and overwhelmingly farming Associations are tearing them to pieces at such a prospect. The Conservatives are the farmers' party. Everyone else will only ever be a guest in it.

Notice that the only people who are still forlornly shrieking that "It's the law that we leave on 29th March" are the 350 people on the March to Leave. The law can be changed, and the Government determines the order of business in a Parliament both Houses of which have No No Deal majorities, indeed have outright Remain majorities. Even a ruling of the Speaker can be overturned by a resolution of the House. This legislation could be done in one day, and it would be.

As for getting consent from the other 27 governments, that is what they are. Governments are governments, and they help each other out, especially against the revolting peasants, in the hope and expectation that the favour would be returned if and when it ever needed to be. So of course they would all say yes. That is not even a question. They might have terms. But we would meet them,  no matter what they were, because that is what governments do for each other.

Either May's deal will pass, or we will simply never leave the European Union. I do not know which it is going to be. But it is going to be one or the other. And May's deal is so close to staying in, but without any kind of say, that within 10 years, and possibly five, we would have re-joined the EU. But this time, with no opt-outs. This time, without a referendum. And this time, forever. Such will be the consequences of having left Brexit to the people who are leading the March to Leave.

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