No.58 - An Elephant in the Room.
Dear James,
Your party seems to have gone stark, raving bonkers. It may be exciting for those of you in the Westminster bubble but from out here in the real world, you all seem to have lost control of your senses. It is difficult to believe what we are hearing and seeing. Mr Hunt offers this, Mr Johnson that. Both have a new mantra - to be out of the EU by October 31st. And both are willing to ransom the nation to the massive risks of a no deal scenario. Hunt proposes a £6bn contingency fund to mitigate the damage that a no deal would do to farmers and fishermen. Mr Johnson says that he will be nice to the public sector. And yesterday morning your earnest Mr Hancock said that Boris was the best candidate to get a new deal through and then - magically - reunite the nation! In what land is your party living James? Certainly not mine.
What we are seeing is the Tory Party reduced to one last reason for being – survival. You have no majority in parliament, no big ideas, no political philosophy, no ideology other than that you must be given the power to get us out of the EU by a particular date. Your party is intellectually bankrupt with no answer to any of the big problems of our nation. Which is why you are willing to offer anything and everything to as many of your 160,000 members as possible. Ideas are piecemeal, just thrown out without any thinking. It is the politics of emptiness, politics for the sake of power alone. And politics which will deliver a new Prime Minister devoid of any legitimacy.
I suppose though that desperate times require desperate remedies and these are desperate times for your party. Never mind though, throwing ourselves off the cliff will show those peskie Europeans where to get off! Just wait until our new leader shows them what for! Imagine the triumph of the Dunkirk spirit when Mr Trump’s America comes in with us and shows the world what the Anglo-Saxons can really do! May 1945 relived. Oh the glory! Oh the majesty of - for ever - being right!
Because for this crazed dream, your party abandoned reality many months ago and that dream is represented by a very large elephant in the room. The elephant however, is neither Mr Johnson nor Mr Hunt. They are merely bit players in your party’s manic bid to survive. In fact the elephant in the room is not a Tory at all. It is one, Mr Nigel Paul Farage. At the recent European elections, Farage’s Brexit Party won 27% of the UK vote. The Tories were pushed into fifth position with a share of just 9%. This is the real reason for this crazed and irresponsible charade of your party elections. To save your party, you must out Farage, Farage. Of course, the European elections are not the same as the first-past-the-post, Westminster elections. However, with respect to a UK General Election, a recent Survation poll for the Mail on Sunday showed Labour in the lead on 26%, Tories 24%, Brexit party 20%, Liberal Democrats 18%. So even in a UK election the Brexit Party will destroy your ability to get that magical 30% plus share that will bring a majority of Westminster seats your way. More good reasons for your party panic!
And that is the final reason why your party is desperately trying to hang onto power. The 2016 referendum, won on a slim majority of 3.4%, was your best and only chance of taking a perfectly economically healthy nation into the wild woods of nostalgic nationalism and its hugely damaging economic consequences. So when Boris becomes our new PM, I assume that you, as a career politician, will nail your colours to his mast and therefore become collectively responsible for the most irresponsible government that our country will have known for centuries. That will be quite a burden to carry James. I hope you’re up to it?
There was one more interesting revelation in the recent Survation survey. If you add up all the voting intentions in terms of Leavers and Remainers, the latter are well ahead on 54% of the vote leaving the Leavers on 46%. And that is the really scarey thing for your party. You dare not admit it, but times have changed and to quote David Davies, ‘A Democracy is not a democracy unless it can change its mind.’
But it is not too late James. Even though your party is about to throw itself into permanent oblivion, you could be brave and courageous and, with a huge effort, attempt to think independently on the basis of facts. Given the confusion and doubt in the country, any true democrat would do the natural thing. They would go back to the people.
Any chance James?
Kind regards,
BH - Your Concerned Constituent