No.60 - Those whom the Gods Wish to Destroy, they first Make Mad
Dear James,
I believe it was Sophocles who once said that those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. Well the first stage of that process has been reached. The Tory Party has gone mad. The 99.75% of the population that are not voting in this contest have watched incredulously as first Boris then Jeremy and then half the ministers who just ten days ago were ridiculing a no-deal scenario, have swerved to an extreme Brexit position, tearing up the current agreement with the EU, abandoning the Irish backstop and threatening a no deal exit. If that is not madness, I don’t know what is!
Your Party is in an existential crisis James. When Mr Johnson becomes PM it will move from being a traditional, broad church Conservative party to a populist party of the far right. Will you go with it?
If you do, it will mean abandoning the conservatism as we have known it for the last two hundred years. The Economist recently quoted Michael Oakshott in his definition of conservatism. “To be a conservative … is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbound, the near to the distant.” Which is, of course, the antithesis of the no-deal scenario touted by Mr Johnson and which would eject us blindly and against parliament’s will, into a world of WTO rules whereby our beef would be subject to an export tariff of 40% and new cars and car parts to import tariffs of 10% and 4.5% respectively. And that’s just for starters.
William Buckley, the American journalist, once wrote that the conservative role is to ‘to stand athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one else is willing to do so.’ Is it conservatism then to yell ‘Go!’ Over the brink, blindly into a future of ideological puritanism that will leave our nation poorer and with less influence in the world than we have known for the last two hundred a fifty years?
Boris is crying out for Brexit at any cost. He is very soon to become the UK’s analogue of Mr Trump. Make America Great Again, will become Make Britain Great Again. This is not conservatism James. It is reactionary nationalism, red in tooth and claw. Your party will be heading for oblivion.
We can already discern the outline of Boris’s first unelected cabinet. Dominic Raab for Foreign Secretary? Iain Duncan Smith for the Home Office? Or will it be Amber Rudd for the Home Office – yes, she who only ten days ago was saying that ‘no deal’ would be a disaster and is now backing Boris for exactly that? Matt Hancock – that craven convert to the no deal scenario for Chancellor? And after that there is of course, Liz Truss, in charge of Business and the Environment? And what about Jacob-Rees Mogg? Will there be something for him to do other than being Minister for the 18th Century? The list is underwhelming and the various permutations of positions is shocking – but also largely irrelevant,
Because the new cabinet will be illegitimate from the start. Elected by just 0.25% of the population and facing exactly the same parliamentary arithmetic and the determination of the EU to stick to its agreement, it will very quickly hit a brick wall. The same brick wall that Mrs May has faced for the last three years.
The good news James is that you still, at this moment, have a choice. You could listen to those in your party who wish to stick to its true values. Faced with a possible suspension of parliament they are planning to stage a House of Commons “sit-in” in a bid to block any Boris Johnson attempt to force through a disastrous No Deal by October 31st. Chancellor Philip Hammond has said he will do all in his power to stop a catastrophic No Deal and is predicted to become leader of a rebel group “once he is sacked”. Current business secretary Greg Clark is pushing back on Mr Johnson, warning that many thousands of jobs would be lost through No Deal. The cracks are widening by the day James.
So it’s your choice. If you choose to acquiesce under Boris, you will have abandoned any hope of serving the interests of the nation as a whole but more than that, you will also have submitted to the dissolution of the Tory party into a far right Populist fringe. Is this what you want?
Please think carefully James. Your party and the nation are approaching a crisis of historical proportions and you have a role to play.
Please play it well – for sanity's sake!
Kind regards,
BH - Your Concerned Constituent