He\u2019s back! What a spiffing\nfellow, Enoch Powell\u2019s cheerier heir, with his pint and his fags and his coat a\nbit like mine. He\u2019s just the sort of officer class public schoolboy that the\nnorthern proletariat will vote for in droves I\u2019ll wager, and with proper\ndeference to boot! Nigel Farage represents people who want to be from\nsomewhere, not just from anywhere, but who are not racist in any meaningful\nsense of the term (hence why Nige has binned UKIP, which had taken a bit of a\nturn for the worse). He wants out hard, and he\u2019s certainly not afraid to say\nso, and if you want that too, you\u2019ll vote for him in the European Parliamentary\nelections. He\u2019s got the dosh (probably from Aaron Banks, though we are told it\nis from an army of small donors), he\u2019s got the candidates lined up along with\nmost of the Tory grass roots to pound the pavements for them, he\u2019s got Strictly\nCome Dancing sensation Anne Widdecombe on the ticket, and he has a simple,\ncompelling banner \u2013 the Brexit Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then there are his mortal enemies,\nthe very catchy sounding \u201cChange UK\/The Independent Group\u201d. Only Chuka Umunna\ncould have come up with that hybrid of tech-era cheesiness and general\nvagueness. His \u201cnew type of politics\u201d will doubtless decide all things by\ncommittees and confusion. Only a bloke who wears a suit and a shirt, but then\nmakes a point of not wearing a tie, could possibly come up with a party called that<\/em>, and then not<\/em> actually put himself in charge of it! Anyhow, they want hard\nback in, via a gerrymandered second referendum in which the leave vote is split\nbetween two other options: May\u2019s deal (unpopular and pretty dire) and no deal\n(which everyone is always being told to be terrified of). So, Chuka and the\ngang are for re-setting the clock. Change UK are not up for change in the UK.\nRemainers will flock to them, I reckon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the battle lines thus drawn,\nwe may witness on 23rd<\/sup> May a turnout far in excess of anything we\nhave ever seen before for European elections. And this going to be about one\nthing, and one thing only: where you stand on Brexit. If you want out by the\ndecision of the original referendum (which was hard Brexit, no Customs Union,\nno Single Market, no matter what anyone may have since claimed \u2013 and I say that\nas a man who voted to remain in 2016) then you will vote for the Brexit Party.\nIf you want May\u2019s deal, you\u2019ll vote Tory, I think, though her deal seems to\ncommand little popularity and the Tories are so clearly split that I think they\nwill be slaughtered in this election. If you want firmly in, you will vote Change\nUK. Or you\u2019ll vote Lib Dem; or Green; or SNP; or, come to think of it, pretty\nmuch any party other than the Brexit Party and UKIP. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And herein lurks the peril for\nthe remainers. It is striking that, thus far at least, there has been no remain\nelectoral pact between at the very least the Liberal Democrats and Change UK.\nApparently Plaid Cymru and the Greens were planning some sort of joint ticket\nbut could not agree on it \u2013 thus squandering what would have been a truly\nmighty electoral coalition. Perhaps they were all blind-sided by the EU\u2019s\nconcession of the so-called Halloween Extension until 31st <\/sup>October. The\nremain movement is split and disorganised. Only Farage seems to have all his\nducks in a row. We could therefore see a huge tranche, a Great Silent Majority,\nvoting for the Brexit Party. If that is the case, what we will be looking at is\nnothing short of a clear mandate for a hard Brexit. We will be looking at a second\nreferendum, in effect, even if Farage shares some of his votes with UKIP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More likely perhaps is that the majority\nof votes go to remain parties. Yet if this is the case, then the result will be\nless clear because they are split. With the exception of Change UK, all are\nlong-established parties with broad programmatic policy mixes that span far\nmore than British relations with the EU (UKIP and the Brexit Party are single\nissue entities, especially the latter). So if the remain vote comes out as a majority,\nbut dispersed across Labour (unclear policy, but very soft Brexit), the Lib Dems,\nthe nationalist parties, the Greens and Change UK (all firmly remain) then it\nwill be a far muddier mandate, perhaps not a mandate at all. It will be easy to\nclaim that voters had made decisions along traditional party lines rather than\non the issue in question. If turnout is not that high, it could plausibly be\nclaimed that the oft-caricatured Brexit voters of 2016 just didn\u2019t make it out\nof Greggs or Betfred to get to the polling stations. If the vote goes to the\nleavers, it\u2019s a mandate. If the vote is to stay, it\u2019s just Brexit fatigue and\ngeneral apathy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So this is a moment of danger for\nthe remain cause. They have failed to forge a decisive alliance and they lack\nstrong leadership with only three weeks to go. What then happens is that Tony\nBlair weighs in, or someone smug and cosmopolitan like George Osborne or Nick\nClegg says something hifalutin or patronising from somewhere like Monaco or\nCapri. Then Mark Carney starts telling everyone that if we don\u2019t vote for\nChange UK, then within five years 8.3% of GDP will go up in smoke. I may share\nmuch with Mark Carney \u2013 the intellectual gravitas, the debonair looks and the\nall-round Davos Man suaveness spring to mind \u2013 but we diverge in our attitude\ntowards independent public bodies displaying implicit but very obvious\npolitical bias using pie-in-the-sky statistics that any economist can tell you\nhave no more integrity than the dregs in your tea pot. Our apathetic Brexit\ntypes will see all this. They will put down their pies and pints and stub out\ntheir Lambert and Butlers, and they will follow their knight in shining armour\nNigel Farage all the way to the voting booth just to stick it to the slick\nmulticultural metropolitan types; types like Chuka Umunna, in fact. And, to\ngive them their fully deserved due, they will do this because they know what\nthe European Union is, and they want to leave it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Farage is a remarkable\npolitician. Even if you loathe him, his integrity is crystal clear. He cannot\nbe accused of some power grab, because he wishes to win an election to a body\nthat he then wants to leave. He stands against a genuine great betrayal,\nbecause if you are to have a referendum then you must abide by the decision\nthat it delivers. Next to the stereotyped Brexit voter I have described above\nis aligned another voter that is politically informed, and politically\nprincipled, and is turned off by the shrill hypocrisy of the remain movement\nand the polarisation of British politics that their campaign has attenuated.\nFarage could swing this vote. If he does, then we may actually, finally, see\nsome recognition from the overwhelmingly pro-remain political and media class\nthat the decision to leave the European Union must be properly honoured. This\ncould be our second referendum in all but name, and I genuinely hope that it\nserves up something that stops us from the terrible political and\nconstitutional damage that an actual, formal second referendum would\nundoubtedly wreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Von Hayek<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"