Britain – From Tail-Spin To Death Spiral

Robert Woodward – TruePublica: Thomas Edison once famously said – “I have not failed, I have simply found 10,000 ways to fail.” Theresa May and the Conservative government have clearly taken Edison’s words as the mantra for their holy war against common sense, logic and decency. It appears this is their only grand plan.

This political farce is an unedifying spectacle for normal British people to witness. It might be standard practice in places like America or Azerbaijan but not in the land of brolly collectors, acknowledging complete strangers in the street and afternoon tea.

 

Last week, the Court of Appeal heard the final attempt by the UK in the EU group to have Theresa May’s decision to trigger Article 50 declared invalid. They failed because while it was understood by the court that illegalities and fraud had taken place to swing voters to Leaving the UK – the referendum was not legally binding. Maximum fines being dished out, the involvement of the police, the National Crime Agency and Electoral commission was all part of the evidence given but ultimately rejected. However, Theresa May decided it was legally binding, did not debate this issue because ‘Brexit means Brexit’ and went ahead – without a plan A. Or plan B. Or any plan at all.

Because of that lack of planning, there is no parliamentary majority for Brexit. Especially not May’s deal. In fact, the only thing there is a majority for is – no agreement on anything.

If anything, common sense would say, if failure is the only common denominator – don’t keep trying more failure. Try something else. But Theresa May is just like Edison but with no light at the end of the tunnel. For the rest of us, there is another few thousand failures on the way – it’s like some form of untested national civilian torture trial.

Still, look on the bright side – the Tories are getting closer every day to reaching their grand failure plan because they have some leaders whose skill sets excel in just this one thing.

Mind you, a look at Labour’s recent shenanigans makes eye-rolling in the head an automatic response to anything Brexit. Taking no-deal off the table was paramount, so they ended up where they didn’t want to go in the first place – a second referendum. This is because they have always said they want to – ‘respect the result of the referendum’ – the same one the court just identified as being both fraudulent on the one hand and non-binding on the other. So they caved in and now backing a second referendum. Amazingly, Liam Fox’s opposite number in the guise of Barry Gardiner wants a deal that allows Britain to influence EU trade policy. Of course, we’d all want that but with Brexit we aren’t allowed to because, well, we won’t be in the club and rightly don’t have a say so. Wasn’t that Remain’s point in the beginning? He announced that the best way forward was “a permanent customs union with the EU.” Err – that’s called Remaining in the EU. Gardiner is demonstrating his ability, like Fox, to talk complete tosh with added stupidness. And that takes some doing.

 

Just to top all this nonsense, some more nonsense came to light. And last week demonstrated just how dysfunctional government is and has been for some time now.

Chris Grayling attempted to privatise the probation service. It has ended in abject failure (READ: TruePublica’s 2017 article entitled – You Won’t Believe What The Government Is About To Privatise Next). No surprise really, given the non-stop warnings from just about every direction possible – mostly the profession itself, of course. Grayling’s refusal to listen to the criminal justice experts, the trade unions, probation officers and even the private service providers were ignored. Last week the National Audit Office reported that the service had practically disintegrated. Taxpayers losses – £500 million – and counting plus mounting re-offending for the rest of us to suffer.

 

Next up – Theresa May. The Home Office’s right-to-rent scheme – part of May’s ‘Hostile Environment’ programme, instigated and implemented at her disatrous time at the department, which sought to turn landlords into immigration enforcement officers. Landlords would be legally obliged to make sure tenants had a legal right to be in the UK.

May was told time after time that discrimination would follow. It did and the court agreed. Like the Windrush scandal that was all of Theresa May’s making, we simply don’t know the number of how many British citizens and foreign nationals fell victim to this state-sponsored discrimination. But we’ll no doubt find out in the months ahead.

 

You’ve heard about the Seaborne Freight fiasco, a firm that had no ships and had never run a ferry contract. It turns out that the government settled a lawsuit over ferry contracts in the event of no-deal because they did it in secret denying Eurotunnel the opportunity to bid, which broke public procurement rules. Unlike Seaborne, it had actually run a cross-Channel ferry service called MyFerryLink. Grayling was at the heart of this stupidness. Even more stupid, May continues to back him all the way when everyone else is screaming at her to sack him.

Losses to the taxpayer – £33 million.

 

Then there’s something we really shouldn’t talk about – it’s a very dangerous subject to comment on these days but there is a reason why I’m breaking this rule.

The anti-semitism story that has drenched the Labour party in scandal has been fuelled by the Isreali lobby. There’s no doubt of that. Corbyn and his allies support Palestinian human rights and particularly for supporting the boycott of Israel. Corbyn once urged an end to weapons trading with Israel. Can you imagine saying such things. It has turned into a witch-hunt.

Just to be clear, I’m not saying anti-semitism doesn’t exist in the Labour party or in the wider public, becuase it clearly does. But beware, here comes the next big thing.

If the right-wing are hitting the left with accusations of racism in the form of anti-semitism – then the left are about to hit back with accusations of racism in the form of Islamaphobia – and it will be a sustained campaign just as dirty and below the belt.

The result is that an entire generation, who, misunderstanding these sensitive, even nuanced differences, will end up becoming confused about what racism really is because the lines of right and wrong become blurred – that is how things work in wider society. The truth is Islamophobia was the proxy war of words that helped bring political change – antisemitism is a proxy war against a political movement.

The evidence for that is clear. In the space of just a few short years, the people of Britain are now completely divided. You’re either In/out – Remain/Leave – Black or is that People of Colour/White – young/old, poor/well off, etc.

Don’t forget, it was the government and their extreme supporters that have brought us all these things. They should have been clamping down on any form of racism or discrimination but when people holding office as high as the Prime Minister – who is clearly racist, who intensifies these abhorrent tendencies, then it gives a green light to those who would normally be silent.

A once tolerant nation is now full of hatred and bile. It is everywhere. It is perpetuated by liars and charlatans, amplified by secretive organisations funded with what they call ‘dark-money’. You’d be surprised where all this dark-money comes from but that’s another story.

This is a government lacking moral decency on everything it has done. But it gets worse than that. It is now competing only with its incapacity and ineptitude on everything it does, including gambling with the future prosperity of Britain. And that is all that is being done here – it’s a gamble. There is nothing at all that can be said that they have achieved except for one thing and one thing only. Britain is in an uncontrolled tailspin and right at this moment heading towards a death spiral – the pilot is unconscious.

When Brexit is all said and done, whenever or whatever that turns out to be – we will all be staring at the mess. We will be staring at a political order that completely disintegrated. We will be staring at friends abroad who no longer trust us – at family, neighbours and communities and wonder what we did to ourselves.

Ask yourself and the people around you. Was it worth it? The answer will always be no. It simply isn’t worth the disharmony, the hatred and division.

 

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