Why Laura K's Kasual Reference To The KKK Kan't Stand

Theresa May is no stranger to race scandals. As Home Secretary she engineered the "Hostile Environment" policy that resulted in the wrongful detention and deportation of lawful immigrants (the Windrush scandal) and has since insisted it remain government policy.

So it was no real surprise that 'Theresa The Appeaser' would invite a bunch of white male 'hard Brexiteers' for Sunday lunch at Chequers. 

But it was surprising to learn that a mysterious "couple" of "insiders" now refer to said Brexiteers as the "Grand Wizards" - a title favoured by the Klu Klux Klan, the banned hate organisation that recently reared its hooded head outside a mosque in Belfast.

What was shocking, however, is how we learned this, and the lack of any disclosure as to whether senior KKKConservatives are referring to themselves as leaders of a hate organisation - or what activity has led other "insiders" to use this specific title in relation to them.

Laura Kuenssberg, the BBC's Political Editor, clearly had the inside story on the latest internal machinations of Theresa May's lunch guests and introduced the news of another meeting by stating that "The 'Grand Wizards' (the new name for the Chequer's (sic) daytrippers apparently) also had another meeting this morning, were (sic) they discussed again whether they could get on board to back the PM's deal...". 

Wait, what?

An hour later, Laura claimed to have checked her Tweets and had a bit of rethink. Not much of one, though, because she made the situation worse by stating: "...for the avoidance of doubt, couple of insiders told me using the nickname informally, no intended connection to anything else".

This demonstrates that the "couple of insiders" and Laura herself knew of the outrageous nature of the reference to the KKK generally as well as how it might be taken in this context. Yet there was no sense that she understood that this was itself newsworthy (as subsequent events are proving) - indeed what other journalists might well have considered a 'scoop'. 

Were the "couple of insiders" who informed Laura K of "using the nickname informally" in fact any of the Brexiteers themselves?

It's worth noting that Sarah Vilethe wife of Chequers attendee Michael Gove had tweeted on Saturday the word "lynched" in reference to the People's Vote March and hubby has previously likened himself to the Grand Wizard... stating in a speech in Oxford on 7 September 2016 that: 

“I feel rather like the grand wizard of the KKK giving an address to the AGM of Black Lives Matter.” 

(thereby neatly taking the opportunity to poke fun at the latter organisation and what it stands for - two dog-whistles to far right, white supremacists in one!).

Sarah Vile Vine has since also Tweeted "In fairness, not clear that THEY have given themselves that name." [My underlining of the weasel words, her capitals].

In other words, it remains entirely possible that one or more of the hard Brexiteers have indeed given themselves that name - and we need to know whether that is the case.

After all, it is well known that, despite being banned in 26 EU countries, the KKK and far right hate preachers are attempting to spread their twisted ideology throughout Europe. And the recent event in Belfast shows they are having some effect. 

To be able to guard against the spread of hate and racism we need to know whether the KKKConservatives - and the Prime Minister herself - are making the KKK welcome. And, indeed, if this is something the BBKC itself is happy to condone - or at least ignore - rather than stamp out.

Our votes - and the BBKC's licence fee - depend on it.

The Last Days Of The Brexiteers

As the UK Parliament begins five days of debate on whether and, if so, how the UK might leave the EU, four things tell you that we are seeing the last days of Theresa May and her merry band of Brexiteers. 

At stake is whether the UK (a) crashes out of the EU with no deal and has to rely on World Trade Organisation tariff rules ("No Deal"); (b) exits on the basis of May's daft draft Withdrawal Agreement and a vague commitment to a future trade deal on uncertain terms that won't cover everything yet binds the UK to follow EU rules with no influence ("May's Deal"); or (c) does not exit at all ("No Brexit").  

Here's why the result should be No Brexit:

"The economy, stupid"

After all the lies told during the Leave campaign, the government now admits that every form of Brexit will leave the UK economy smaller than it would be if the UK remains a member of the EU, even after 15 years of trying to make a go of it alone.

How dumb would any Member of Parliament have to be in order to deliberately vote to make the economy smaller?  That can only mean less money for everyone, whether they're workers or benefits recipients. Investors would reduce their investments in the UK because they would see lower returns from a less valuable economy. There'd be less money for both state pensions (because the tax take would be lower) and private pensions (because pension funds would see lower returns like other investors). An ageing population and stricter controls on immigration would mean higher taxes on a declining number of people in work (and fewer carers for the old folks).

Anyone feeling the pinch now will know Brexit Britain would be a far worse place to live.

The UK Can Revoke Article 50 Notice On Its Own, Free of Charge

The government has wasted a fortune on 5 QCs trying in vain to stop the European Court of Justice ruling on whether the UK on its own can cancel or revoke its notice to leave the EU. This morning, the Advocate General filed her opinion which recommends that the court find in favour of that claim. She says the UK can unilaterally revoke its Article 50 notice any time before it expires, by notice to the European Council, following UK parliamentary approval. 

The ECJ usually follows the Advocate General's opinion.

That means it is highly likely that the EU will be bound to accept that the UK Parliament can direct the government to notify the European Council that the Article 50 notice is revoked, in which case Brexit is over, free of charge. Simplez! 

And the Brexiteers' legal problems don't end there...

The Government's Own Legal Advice Does Not Help The Brexiteers

May's draft Withdrawal Agreement says that if the UK and EU can't agree a future trade deal within 2 years, the UK will remain in a customs union with the EU that it can't escape without EU agreement. Brexiteers suspect it might never escape (the 'backstop').

May claims this is just paranoid and the EU also wants the backstop to be temporary. But she's raised suspicions that this is yet another pork pie by refusing to release the legal advice on her daft Withdrawal Agreement, on the basis that disclosure is "not in the public interest". This is tosh. Not only is it perfectly normal to release the full terms of legal advice given to ministers (including the papers requesting that advice), in order to allow their decisions to be challenged by judicial review; but any client can also waive the right to claim legal professional privilege if disclosure of the advice would help it's case.  

So the mere fact that the government has refused to disclose the legal advice allows us to infer that, at the very least, the disclosure would not help the case for accepting May's Brexit plan. 

But the fact that the Attorney General is prepared to do time in the Parliamentary cells for contempt, tells you that the advice is probably very bad indeed.

Huge momentum for a People's Vote, Remainers Are Younger

Even if MPs don't have the cajones to do their job and simply direct the government to revoke the Article 50 notice, they can very likely rely on a referendum to give them a clear mandate to do so. 

The Labour Party says it should first go through the charade process of trying to win a vote of No Confidence in May's government to trigger a General Election, failing which it will seek a People's Vote. But given that a No Confidence motion requires more support, the odds are they'll have to go with a People's Vote.

The support for Remain has likely increased significantly.

Following the march by over 700,000 people in October, a petition requesting a People's Vote signed by 1.4 million was delivered to the Prime Minister's office yesterday.

It is predicted that by mid-January 2019 the number of surviving Remain voters after the 2016 referendum will exceed the number of surviving Leave voters.  

A Channel 4 poll of 20,000 voters last month found 54% in favour of Remain.

Lastly, any referendum tends to be a vote on the government. In 2016, the government of the day was on the Remain side of the debate and it's been suggested that many Leavers voted against the government out of protest at their being 'forgotten' rather than because they really wanted Brexit.  But this government would be on the Leave side of a People's Vote and has been so obsessed by Brexit that it has failed to solve people's problems from 2016 - and, if anything, has made those problems worse. Any 'protest vote' would therefore favour Remain.

Mau-Mauing The Brexiteers

In 1970 a group of indignant, physically intimidating citizens gathered in San Francisco's Office of Economic Opportunity to confront a useless bureaucrat over the fraudulent failings of the Office's poverty relief efforts. The bureaucrat's initially condescending approach soon turned to humiliation and he ended the meeting with a pathetic promise to call his absent boss for some real answers the following morning. Satisfied with the bureaucrat's humiliation, however, nobody turned up to hear him make the call. 

Re-reading Tom Wolfe's famous article on the confrontation last night, it struck me as something of a parable for the campaign against Brexit, and yet revealed a key difference that firmly points to that campaign's success. 

Wolfe called his article on the confrontation in San Francisco "Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers" in reference to both the intimidation by Kenya's anti-colonial Mau Mau Uprising and the tendency for public officials and politicians to send an underling to 'catch the flak' rather than face it themselves. He ends it with the observation, however, that the bureaucrats were ultimately successful. The flak catcher caught the flak and everyone went on with business as usual.

Brexit was billed by the Brexiteers as a poverty relief effort, but we've since discovered it was riddled with fraud, from the claims that there would be an "extra £350m a week" to be spent on the NHS, to the claim that the Tory leader could send the Article 50 notice without reference to Parliament, to the claim that the notice could not be withdrawn and the Brexit process stopped, to the notion that the UK would not need to settle its membership tab on the way out, to the claim that new trade deals would be easy... to the now utterly hollow claim that "Brexit means Brexit".

Such lies and misinformation have cast the Brexiteers as very, very low grade officials indeed. Whether or not you applaud their elevation to cabinet minister by a weak (and faux-Remain or closet Leave) Prime Minister, that step has at least highlighted their total and complete incompetence to lead or achieve anything. Years after launching their mendacious campaign to 'free' the UK from some imagined EU 'dictatorship' they are yet to offer any concrete details for an EU trade deal, let alone a 'Global Britain'. They have even failed at the first hurdle, skewered by their bizarre denial that the UK would need to settle its membership bill before leaving. These people are simply living a fantasy.

The indignant citizens actually confronting these bureaucratic flops are an intimidating bunch. They draw strength from representing at least 16 million people, for a start. They also tend to be the very people whom the Brexiteers must have been relying on to actually achieve the impracticable task of unwinding over 40 years of British efforts to make the UK a key player within the European Union. Beyond the disaffected UK civil servants there are millions of importers, exporters, manufacturers and their workers throughout British industry, investors and investment managers, QCs, judges, academics, teachers, nurses, doctors, students... a whole civil society of people who understand how the UK works, the value of its EU membership and that it does not work in isolation and who consider themselves EU citizens as well as UK citizens. They are angry and they are fighting for their rights and in many cases their homes.

But the key difference between the #StopBrexit campaigners and the indignant citizens who gathered in the San Francisco Office of Economic Opportunity in June 1970 is that no one is letting the hapless Brexiteers off the hook.  Unlike short-sighted Leave voters and the dormant botnets of the Leave campaign, their Twitter accounts are very much alive and connected to ongoing investigations, court proceedings, official complaints and petitions. They are relentless in challenging the hollow rhetoric flowing from the Brexiteers. And unlike the Brexiteers, anti-Brexit politicians are not fighting for their credibility - they can safely rely on inertia and the vast weight reality, statistics, events and common sense to expose the Brexiteers' feeble lies and misinformation on a daily basis. They are not satisfied with the mere humiliation of May, Johnson, Gove, Davis, Fox and their supporters and apologists (including the Labour front bench!). No, they are turning up the next day, every day, day after day, demanding answers and an end to Brexit.

Why Would The #Brexiteers Lie?

Follow the money. 

Years of low interest rates have made investors desperate for higher returns, and volatile markets mean lots of big ups and downs, like the rollercoaster ride we've seen since the Brexit vote and are likely to see for many years as a result. Movement either way is an opportunity for speculators to make money, even if the longer term trend is down. And paying rock-bottom prices for UK assets could mean good profits can be made selling them to predatory trade partners in the future. 

At any rate, steady as she goes won't cut it for the wealthy investor - which is why "strong and stable" is just another #Brexiteer lie. After all, the wealthy don't have to live in Britain when the going gets tough.

So this is why the Leave campaign was largely funded by 5 wealthy financial investors, and why after the Brexit vote, George Osborne knew it was best to leap into an investment fund manager. 

And now that Brexit is hitting the buffers, guess what? Legatum, the Tory's hard-Brexit stupidity "think" tank has received £4m from a wealthy investor from New Zealand who Private Eye says made his money "by finding undervalued assets the rest of market ignored – “transition economies or distressed sectors where information is not easily available and standard metrics don’t apply”.

It's still unclear where the so-called "Institute for Free Trade" got its money, but it has similar hallmarks to the other Brexiteer stunts.

Meanwhile, the same Brexiteers are charging 55p a minute for benefits recipients to call the Universal Credit helpline... never mind that it's illegal for debt collectors to do so.

Make no mistake: Brexit is for a few, not the many who are unwitting pawns in their game.