Brexitwatch: Waiting for the German Carmakers by Samuel Beckett

In what's being described as the literary sensation of the century, I have discovered a hitherto unpublished play by Samuel Beckett, the great Irish dramatist, who wrote in English and French. Entitled 'Waiting for the German Carmakers', its central characters are two tramps - Johnson and Davis.

Davis says he was 'Secretary of State for (being unable to deliver) Brexit', while Johnson claims to be 'Prime Minister', though as his constant telling of ever more outrageous lies is a joke that runs through the play, it is not clear whether he is to be believed.

Because of the constraints of copyright, I can reproduce only the final scene of the play, which features one other character, a messenger boy named Farage, who says he's English, but has a French name and a German passport, and whose money (or at least the part we know about) all comes from Europe.

Davis and Johnson stand aimlessly by roadside. Enter Farage stage very far right. 

DAVIS: You have a message from the German carmakers?
FARAGE: Yes. They won't save you today.
DAVIS: But will they save us tomorrow?
FARAGE: Yes.
DAVIS: Without fail?
FARAGE: Yes

Farage exits even further far right. 

JOHNSON: Let's go and apply to rejoin the EU.
DAVIS: We can't.
JOHNSON: Why not?
DAVIS; Because we're waiting for the German carmakers! (Aside) And because Cummings would beat your head in.
JOHNSON: Ah, yes!

Davis and Johnson continue to stand aimlessly for a few moments. Then with sudden animation Johnson grabs Davis by the fraying lapels of his disintegrating jacket.

JOHNSON (shouting). Shut up about the German carmakers! They're not going to save us! But I don't care! I know I said we're going to have frictionless trade, but we're not! We're going to have trade with loads of friction! In fact, we won't have any trade at all! F**k business! I'm still the World King, and everyone has to obey me! Except Cummings, of course, oh and Putin, and Trump,

The curtain descends as Johnson continues to declaim his list with growing irritation as his voice fades into the distance

and Scotland, all right and Northern Ireland, Wales, Bury Council, Hartlepool........

Brexitwatch: What's Boris Johnson up to?

Three years ago, I was asking: 'What is Theresa May up to?' (see my blog of 9 October 2016) and never coming to any satisfactory conclusion. Now I'm pondering the same thing about Boris Johnson.

Mrs May would never have won any prizes for honesty, unless her opponent was Boris Johnson. The fact that you can't believe a word Johnson says makes it even more difficult to guess what is his policy (assuming there is one).

Like others, I even speculated that if he won a decent parliamentary majority, Johnson might sell the Tory Brexit fanatic ERG down the river just as he betrayed the DUP, and try to negotiate a less damaging form of Brexit by seeking to stay in the Single Market and the Customs Union.

Unfortunately, his announcement that there will be no extension of the transition phase beyond the end of this year suggests he's still firmly in the fanatic camp. Nobody much seems to think that any deal that does not seriously damage the UK can be done by 31 December 2020.

It's a bizarre move in that it weakens even further the UK's poor negotiating hand. The EU is under no pressure to reach a deal by that date, but now Johnson is, which puts him at the EU's mercy.

So why did he do it? Is the man who was attacking Brexit as madness as recently as 2016 now a fully paid up Brexit fanatic? Was it part of a deal to get Nigel Farage to stand down hundreds of his candidates, without which Johnson would not have won his majority?

Or is it a demonstration, that just as with Theresa May, getting a good deal for the UK is not the priority, and that his actions are posturing, designed instead to curry favour with those at home he believes he needs to keep him in power?

Brexitwatch: does the Tory Party face richly deserved extinction?

Is the Tory Party heading for richly deserved extinction? At the Peterborough by-election the Tories saw their share of the vote fall by 25 percentage points. At the European elections, they won just 9 per cent of the vote. At the local elections they lost more than 1,300 seats. Donations to the party have fallen by half.

And the latest Private Eye reveals the picture is even worse. Although the party appears to own a lot of property, such as Conservative clubs and buy-to-let properties, very little is owned by the party centrally.

Almost all of it is in the hands of local associations and trusts, and those local associations are starting to abandon the parliamentary party, with shedloads of local officeholders backing the Brexit Party at the European elections. Now the fear is that local branches will start giving up on the party, affiliating with Nigel Farage’s lot instead, and taking the property with them.

Is this one of the reasons why we are getting unadulterated pandering to the party’s worst, most reactionary instincts from those trying to replace Theresa May.

Brexitwatch: working together to beat Brexit - a disappointing response from the Greens

Last week I wrote to the three main pro-Remain parties in England: the LibDems, Greens and Independent Group to ask how they would be co-operating in the local and European elections (see my post of April 12).

The only response I've had so far has been from the Greens. It was disappointing (and suggested a lack of understanding of how the voting system works): 

Hi John, 

Thank you for getting in touch. 

We released this statement on the matter yesterday: 

"The Green Party has no plans to field joint ‘remain’ lists in the upcoming European Elections. The Green Party has a long and proud history within the European Parliament - from being a strong and unwavering voice for Remain, to fighting climate change and standing up for workers’ rights. 

"The European Parliament election is conducted by proportional representation, which means every vote counts and every vote can make a difference. In the last European Elections the Green Party came ahead of the Liberal Democrats, with three MEPs elected. We would also resist any calls for us to stand alongside parties with whom we have fundamental ideological differences on austerity, economic policy and beyond." 

Kind regards, 
Culann 
Membership Team 
Green Party of England and Wales 

I have replied to the Green MP Caroline Lucas  caroline.lucas.mp@parliament.uk and to the party's leadership - leader@greenparty.org.uk

Dear Caroline Lucas & Green Party,

I am bitterly disappointed by the reply I have received to my question about how pro-Remain parties are going to co-operate in the local and European elections. 

You do not even mention the local elections, and your reply on the European elections reflects a tribalism that would fit perfectly in the Tory and Labour parties. It also suggests an ignorance of how the electoral system in the Euro elections works. Except in N Ireland, it is not a properly proportional system. A threshold has to be passed before a party can get any MEPs. The more pro-Remain parties fight each other, the fewer pro-Remain MEPs there will be.

If the election is handed to Nigel Farage or the Tory party, it will be a terrible blow for the Remain cause, and anyone in the pro-Remain parties who helps facilitate it will not be forgiven.

Please thing again.

Yours sincerely,

John Withington

Brexitwatch competition: which was the greatest Brexit lie?

Should we have a competition to decide which was the greatest of all the Brexit lies? Was it:

1. An extra £350m a week for the NHS - said by pretty well everyone, and not denied by the few who didn't say it
2. A free trade agreement with the EU will be 'one of the easiest in human history' - Liam Fox
3. 'The UK holds most of the cards' - John Redwood
4. There is 'no downside to Brexit, only a considerable upside' - David Davis
5. We can 'have our cake and eat it' - Boris Johnson
6. 'The day after we vote to leave, we hold all the cards' - Michael Gove
7. A 52-48 result would be 'unfinished business' - Nigel Farage
8. 'Absolutely no one is talking about threatening our place in the single market' - Daniel Hannan
9. After Brexit, we will have 'the same benefits in terms of free access' to the EU - Theresa May

I am open to other nominations.

Last question. When it is so clear that the referendum result was procured by bare-faced lying on an industrial scale (not to mention criminality), does the House of Commons have any motive for failing to declare it null and void apart from cowardice?

Brexitwatch: make UKIP honour its promise

On Thursday (6 Sept), the London Assembly votes on whether to throw its weight behind a People's Vote. On Friday (31 Aug) I posted an email I had written to Labour and Conservative members, but if you are a Londoner, you are also represented by two UKIP members, who are elected as 'Londonwide' members. So don't leave them out!

During the referendum campaign, Nigel Farage said that if the margin of victory was as narrow as 52% to 48% there would need to be a further vote. 

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/nigel-farage-52-48_uk_5820dc7ce4b020461a1d5fd9

As we know, it was actually tighter. So let's have that further vote - a People's Vote on the terms of Brexit. This is what I wrote to the two UKIP members, David Kurten and Peter Whittle:

During the Brexit referendum campaign, UKIP promised that in the event of a 52-48% margin there would be another vote, as this would be too narrow to be conclusive.

As you know, the margin was even tighter, and it is also plain that the Brexit that was promised cannot be delivered.

I call on you now, therefore, to throw your weight behind the campaign for a People's Vote and to support it in Thursday's vote.

The Brexit Tax: how much are you prepared to pay?

Nobody much now believes the biggest lie in British politics: that leaving the EU would produce an extra £350 million a week for the NHS. It is now clear that ANY arrangement that follows us leaving the EU will make us worse off - apart from a few of the hyper-rich non-elite who may be helped to avoid tax.

An assessment that Theresa May tried to keep secret shows that if we get a Norway-type deal of leaving the EU, but staying in the Single Market (the kind Nigel Farage used to favour but now considers insufficiently extreme) we will all be 2 per cent worse off. 

With a Canada-type free trade deal, we will be 5 per cent worse off, and if we go for the no-deal scenario favoured by the Brexit fanatics, which Theresa May is keen not to rule out, we will all be 8 per cent worse off. So instead of being paid, say, £30,000, you will get £27,600.

But it gets worse. Because we will all have less money, the government will get less from taxes to pay for the NHS and other public services. By 2033, the Norway model will leave a Black Hole in the public finances of £20bn or about £300 for every man, woman and child in the country; the shortfall for a Canada arrangement will be £55bn, or about £850 for every man, woman, and child in the country, while having no deal would cost about £80bn, or £1,230 for each of us.

Interestingly surveys on how much people are to pay for Brexit usually come up with the answer: £0.

Brexitwatch: write to your MP NOW. Support amendment 124 TOMORROW and keep us in the Single Market

Staying in the Single Market is the 'will of the people'. It is also the least damaging form of Brexit, and it solves the otherwise insoluble Irish border problem. This is what I have written to my MP.

Dear Sir Keir,

I know from your previous emails that Labour believes it has to support the Tories on Brexit, however damaging it may be, because it is the 'will of the people'. As you know from my previous emails, I disagree.

However, if you want policy to be dictated by the 'will of the people' that also means we must stay in the Single Market. Every Tory MP elected in 2015 stood on this promise and throughout the Referendum campaign, Leave campaginers such as Boris Johnson, Owen Paterson, Daniel Hannan, Arron Banks, even Nigel Farage, were falling over themselves to assure us we would stay in it.

With such a narrow majority for leaving the EU, it is plain there was a majority for staying in the Single Market. Happily that is also the kind of Brexit that will do least damage and it will solve the otherwise insoluble Irish border problem.

I know that amendment 124 is not a Labour amendment, but on this occasion, I trust you and your Labour colleagues will put country before party and vote for this amendment.

Yours sincerely,

John Withington

Brexitwatch: at last - a defeat for the fanatics!

Nigel Farage really hates it. So there must be something good about the deal Theresa May has done to allow the UK to, probably, move on to the real Brexit negotiations.

Of course, all she has actually done is to kick the can down the road. As to what trade deal we can get with the EU, what transition arrangement there will be to stop the UK economy collapsing in March 2019, how the unicorns can be persuaded to fly in formation so that there is no border at the border between the EU and the UK in Ireland – all these issues and many more have simply been deferred.

But at least the head-bangers, the Brexit fanatics, did not get their heart’s desire of a suicidal, no-deal walk-out. And that probably represents the first time Theresa May has stood up to them.

People voted for Brexit for many different reasons – a lot of them contradictory and irreconcilable. Now there is a chance to drive a wedge into perhaps the most important fault-line – the one that divides the fanatics of UKIP and the Tory right who couldn’t care less how much Brexit damages the economy and just want to leave whatever the cost, and the more pragmatic Brexit-ers who believe, wrongly in my view, that leaving the EU will somehow make us more prosperous.  

There is a long way to go, but this is an important setback for the fanatics.