Stop squabbling, grow up - and get on with Brexit: RICHARD LITTLEJOHN says the political class's behaviour since the referendum vote has bordered on the clinically insane
The
entire political class have taken leave of their senses. Both during
the referendum campaign and since the result was announced, their
behaviour has bordered on the clinically insane.
Of
course, you should never underestimate their uncanny ability to make
everything about them. But the unedifying orgy of self-indulgence we
have seen over the past week has plumbed new depths of cynicism and
opportunism.
Yesterday's
Tory leadership contest fiasco resembled a Whitehall farce scripted by
David Chase, the man who created The Sopranos. If you ever doubted that
politicians are an alien race apart, then here was conclusive proof.
Following
David Cameron's inevitable resignation after his humiliating defeat at
the ballot box, the Conservative Party in Parliament decided that the
best response was to form a circular firing squad.
If you ever doubted that politicians
are an alien race apart, then yesterday's Tory leadership contest fiasco
was conclusive proof
Instead
of sober reflection, they embarked on an incestuous bout of infighting
and jockeying for position, as the real world looked on aghast.
As
I wrote on Tuesday, only inside the Westminster village could anyone in
their right mind interpret the most momentous decision the British
people have taken in half a century as a clear message that: What we
want is Stephen Crabb.
Yet
here was someone most people have never heard of being touted seriously
as the saviour of the nation, despite the fact that he was on the
losing side in the referendum argument.
Crabb
is now one of five names that will go forward to Tory MPs before the
field is whittled down to two and laid before the wider membership.
Home Secretary Theresa May is the odds-on favourite.
When
17,410,742 people put their cross in the Leave box a week ago, how many
of them thought that what they were really voting for was to install
Mother Theresa as Prime Minister?
After
all, she had rarely been seen in public for the past five months,
having spent the referendum campaign hiding behind the sofa.
Yet
now, if the polls and the bookies are to be believed, she will be in
overall charge of the negotiations to extricate Britain from the EU —
something she didn't believe in.
May
announced her candidacy in a tartan trouser suit that made her look
like one of the Bay City Rollers — an outfit presumably intended to
reassure voters north of the border that she would protect Scotland's
best interests, too.
The
one name conspicuously missing from the list was the early front-runner
Boris Johnson, who withdrew from the fray after being comprehensively
shafted by his Leave colleague Michael Gove. During the campaign, the
two men had been joined at the hip and it was assumed that they'd run on
a joint ticket.
The
first we knew of a rift between them was when an explosive private
email from Gove's wife, Mail columnist Sarah Vine, fell into the wrong
hands and was leaked to Sky News.
Even
so, no one predicted that Gove would chuck his own hat into the ring,
especially as he had once said that he was prepared to write 'on
parchment in my own blood' a guarantee that he did not want to lead his
party or become Prime Minister.
It
was a promise he restated during one of the televised referendum
debates. Then again, he is a politician, so we shouldn't be too
surprised that he's gone back on his word. They all do.
At
heart, every MP dreams of making it to No 10. They're all living in
their own movie. Politicians don't have friends in any meaningful sense,
just disposable alliances. Their principles are infinitely flexible
when it comes to career advancement.
They talk frequently of loyalty, but none of them actually means it.
The
Goves and the Camerons were supposed to be bosom buddies, but that
didn't stop Call Me Dave sacking Gove from the education department to
appease the teaching unions and the so-called 'Blob'.
In return, Gove knifed Cameron over Europe and now he's knifed his ex-New Best Friend Boris, too.
Gove
may be an impeccably mannered chap, but he's clearly a student of the
Cosa Nostra and now appears to fancy making the leap from consigliere to
Godfather. Be careful what you wish for, Michael.
As
for Boris, he has suffered the same fate as his hero Winston Churchill,
who was also discarded immediately after his finest hour.
As for Boris, he has suffered the same
fate as his hero Winston Churchill, who was also discarded immediately
after his finest hour
The first we knew of a rift between
Michael Gove and Boris Johnson was when an explosive private email from
Gove's wife, Mail columnist Sarah Vine, fell into the wrong hands and
was leaked to Sky News
Whether,
like Churchill, he can make a comeback remains to be seen. But after a
brilliant campaign, Boris didn't do himself any favours by deciding to
lay out his vision of the road ahead in his newspaper column, rather
than in public — and appeared to back-pedal on his promise that a Leave
vote would drastically reduce immigration.
Nevertheless,
he had earned his crack at the leadership and the conspiracy to keep
him off the ballot paper is yet another affront to democracy. So is the
suggestion that May and Gove might stitch up a deal to prevent party
members even getting a vote on who becomes the next leader and occupant
of Downing Street.
Gove
may be an impeccably mannered chap, but he's clearly a student of the
Cosa Nostra and now appears to fancy making the leap from consigliere to
Godfather.
There
have been far too many affronts to democracy over the past week,
particularly from resentful Remainers who have howled petulantly from
the rooftops about the electorate stupidly voting the 'wrong' way.
The
notion that they will still try to scupper Brexit, either in
Parliament, by holding a second referendum or by trying to force a
General Election, is monstrous.
I
suppose I should mention the turmoil in the Labour Party, which has
also suffered a nervous breakdown. Labour MPs have interpreted the Leave
vote as an opportunity to force Jeremy Corbyn to resign and replace him
with one of the Eagles.
Not
that I care what happens to him, or who comes next, but it should be
pointed out that all along Corbyn has shown little enthusiasm for the EU
and if he did, as reported, vote to Leave in the privacy of the polling
booth, then he was more in touch with the mood of the British people
than 80 per cent of MPs from all parties at Westminster.
And
there's the rub. When it came to the EU, the overwhelming majority of
the political class — including the woman who may well become our next
Prime Minister — were on the wrong side of history and at odds with the
people they are supposed to represent.
We have had a week of lunacy, whining
and navel-gazing at Westminster, time which should have been devoted to
working out how quickly the will of the people could be implemented in
an orderly fashion
Where's
the leadership from anyone? Certainly Theresa was missing in action
during the campaign. Most of the Cabinet backed Remain and went along
with Cameron and Osborne's disgraceful efforts to bully and terrify
people into doing as they were told.
There certainly aren't any outstanding or obvious leaders on the Tory ballot paper, nor within Labour's ranks either.
Once
again the political class — not that they've shown much class lately —
have been obsessed with settling their own petty scores, squabbling
among themselves and advancing their own careers rather than getting on
with the job in hand.
Lest
they need reminding, the British people have just given them a clear
mandate to get Britain out of the anti-democratic, corrupt EU racket.
That's what they should be concentrating on right now.
Instead,
we have had a week of lunacy, whining and navel-gazing at Westminster,
time which should have been devoted to working out how quickly the will
of the people could be implemented in an orderly fashion.
They
also need reminding that this wasn't just a rejection of the EU, it was
a revolt against the entire political class, whose antics over the past
week have been an insult to the magnificent exercise in popular
democracy we have just experienced.
And unless they get the message, this revolt won't be the last.
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The Illuminati Jewish Plan for European Genocide
http://henrymakow.com/2015/06/The-Illuminati-Jewish-Plan-for-European-Genocide%20.html
“No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and Virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders.”
Samuel Adams, American Founding Father
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