The irredeemable corruption of the ruling Conservative and Unionist party was revealed beyond all doubt this week.
Some 200 Conservative MPs voted to support the Betrayal Deal by which Theresa May’s government proposes to submit the United Kingdom to the emerging federal European Government.
Yes, 118 Conservative MPs did vote against this appalling humiliation. But they were obliged to side with the Opposition. Recent events show conclusively that this principled minority are powerless against the treacherous self serving and Remain minded cancer which has destroyed traditional conservatism in their Party.
In Wednesday’s Confidence vote tabled by the Labour Opposition against the Conservative government, this minority of MPs were obliged to prop up their Leader against the far left leanings of Corbyn’s Labour.
Their position is not merely unenviable but unsustainable.
The Conservative Party has not only deserted its Right Wing credentials – it has also deserted the fundamental manifesto commitment it was elected on less than 2 years ago. To get out of the Customs Union and Single Market at the heart of the existing European Union.
Indeed, under May’s treacherous leadership, the Conservative party has gone even further to surrender the vital capability by which a sovereign nation can maintain its independence – its Military.
May is handing over the entire control of the UK’s military capability, its military and therefore its foreign policy, and the entire economy connected with that ie procurement and supply.
In parliament on 17th December 2018, she alluded to this with the words, “the deepest security relationship that has ever been agreed with the EU”.
No further explanation was given then, or at any time before or since…
This is a Prime Minister practised – inter alia – in the art of dressing up the totally unacceptable with bland words.
Her duplicitous and treacherous modus operandi was revealed by the content of her “Withdrawal Deal” – the one rejected by parliament last Tuesday in the humiliating defeat of 432 to 202. You can check on your MPs vote here.
It isn’t a Withdrawal Deal at all. It is a “Transition to a Deeper Integration and Subjection” deal – it is in reality a Betrayal Deal.
And it sums up this Prime Minister and the ruling mindset in her party.
She has cowed the Leave voters in the Cabinet with threats of Corbyn and Apocalypse in the event of anything other than her Betrayal Deal.
Bribery, fear and threats are the currency of politics in Tezza’s party.
It is a party whose culture bred her with her modus operandi. A party which put her in No Ten. A party whose culture she exemplifies: –
Contempt for ordinary members; contempt for Conservatism; contempt for democracy.
In the 19th year of the 21st century, the members of the Conservative party still don’t decide who their leader is, nor do they determine party policy. If they did, this blog post would not have been written.
This corrupt culture is so endemic it manifests continually.
Within three hours of the May Deal being rejected in parliament, Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond held a conference call with leaders of big and multi national companies. On the agenda: stopping a NO Deal Brexit on 29th March 2019.
On Thursday, The Daily Telegraph published the full 5000+ word text of that very revealing conference call Tuesday night.
The presumption of the validity of Remain was manifest. A No Deal exit is totally unacceptable to these people.
Or should I say to these Plutocrats. For that is what they are about. Defying democracy, with sympathy and advice from a Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer.
They spoke about the need for certainty, oblivious to the fact that trade on WTO rules after 29 March 2019 provides just such certainty. Instead they perversely preferred the persistent upset inevitable with May’s Betrayal Deal … [reference link to full text below].
Manifestly, the concerns of big business and potential big donors are very much a priority in this Conservative party.
So it is not surprising that a damning article appeared this week on UnHerd.com titled, How Developers bought the Tory party. [again, link reference below].
To anyone with normal morals and expectations about how a democratic government should operate, the evidence cited in this article is disturbing – but frankly not surprising given the morally elastic way in which the dominant group in the Conservative party behaves.
This culture of defying moral norms in a democracy was also blatantly exposed by two Conservative MPs this week.
Nick Boles wants to stop any Brexit on WTO rules, ie without a Deal being reached with the EU. [The same EU which doesn’t negotiate but dictates]. He presented his Bill on Tuesday and explains his thinking and intentions on his website here
But ruling out the No Deal scenario would be politically and practically disastrous, and likely reverse the Brexit Referendum Result of June 23rd 2016.
That is obviously the intention. And what is more, the mentality of the man is made explicit on his website where he not only admits his attitude but brazenly defies his own party – the Party by which he got elected, the party for which he campaigned on a clear Brexit manifesto commitment.
But this is the breed of supposedly “Conservative” MP we are required to accept. The breed which presents itself as one thing to get themselves selected and elected, but then carries on with a totally different agenda.
I can understand a difference of opinion on a point of policy or a particular issue but Brexit is the most fundamental constitutional, legal and historic concern in the UK today – an issue which for many merits the gravity manifested in the upheavals of our 17th century history.
Finally, Dominic Grieve who uses his legal experience as a previous Attorney General to unashamedly ditch Brexit come hell or high water. He was the author of the dodgy amendment acceded to recently by arch Remainer and Speaker of the House John Bercow – another Tory around whom the stench of bad behaviour is powerfully pungent …
Well, Mr Grieve has excelled himself. Officially listed on Wednesday 16th January 2019 is his Bill to hold a Referendum on the UK’s future relationship with the EU.
You and I, and millions of other voters too, may believe that we voted about just that on 23rd June 2016. You and I may have believed the government’s written promise to the nation in its brochure to every household [cost £7 million of taxpayers money not declared in the official campaign expenses] that the UK government would implement the decision of the people in that Referendum.
Not Mr Grieve and his ilk in the Conservative party. Mr Grieve and his ilk know better than the rest of us. Imbued with the spirit of the EU, they are the guardians of our conscience and the protectors of our welfare.
As priests of the Utilitarian and Totalitarian cult of EUtopia, they are absolved from the moral norms that apply to the rest of us. They can do anything and everything in the name of their Ideal. Including twist the norms of our parliamentary procedure, break the contractual promises of government and party, and tell the rest of us how we are to live.
Of course Boles and Grieve would not be taking these initiatives without knowing that there are others – and others in key positions in their party – who are prepared to go along with them.
Frankly, a party which engenders this type of behaviour should have no place in our democracy. A party teaching people that this is how politics is to be done brings the entire practice of politics into disrepute – and that brings peaceful, parliamentary resolution of issues into grave danger.
A party which pretends to be Conservative, but is no such thing, is a travesty – a cancer to be excised.
The 110 Brexit MPs who voted down May’s Betrayal Deal last Tuesday have some serious thinking to do.
And some serious plans to make if both Brexit and Conservatism in the UK are to survive, let alone thrive.
Ray Catlin
References:
https://unherd.com/2019/01/how-developers-bought-the-tory-party/
and Grieve’s Bill is identified in an interesting take on recent developments on the Conservative Woman website at: –
re latest on John Bercow and useful links therein:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8223552/john-bercow-out-of-parliament-tories-replace-him/
plus a critical assessment on the constitutional impropriety of the Boles/Grieve/Bercow initiatives, see Sir Stephen Laws verdict at
Conservatism Institute 