May’s attack on Blair shows strain is taking its toll

I have sent an email to her parliament email box stating that Tony Blair has every right to offer his opinion on Brexit. After all doesn’t she lecture us all about democracy?
My own feeling is that May had a privileged upbringing and always got her own way and she thinks she can do the same now. She has totally lost all credibility. She is actually an insult to the office she holds because she is not up to it. No intellect., lacks statesmanship and stamps her feet when she can’t get her own way.

And the poor dear has aged terribly under the strain of office possibly at least because she feels obliged to do the opposite to what she was telling the British people needed to be done in an address she made on 25th April 2016 before the EU Referendum. That video address now circulating by courtesy of this week’s edition of the New European newspaper , is one of Theresa May giving a speech in which she sets out all the reasons why the UK should stay in the EU. The reasons given contradict ALL the arguments now being put forward by the PM to justify Brexit.

OK so the country decided otherwise and didn’t follow Mrs May’s advice but how can she honestly decide that the reasons she gave for staying in the EU before the referendum are now no longer valid ?

No wonder such little confidence is shown in the political class when an MP can say one thing one day and the opposite the next. How can Mrs. May retain any credibility in these circumstances ?

If anyone has devalued our premiership , it’s Mrs May herself

She was responsible for the truck driving around London threatening illegal immigrants and offering them money to go home. As I recall, there was ONE taker. She has terrible judgement, as we saw with her decision to hold the last election and her present obvious tactic of dragging things out to the very last moment only goes to show the depth of her pigheadedness. She’s not stupid; surely she can see that more and more people want a 2nd vote, now that we know just what Brexit truly entails. On that subject, if life outside the EU is going to be so shangrila, why aren’t the other 27 nations clamouring to leave ? And why did we join in the first place ? Oh yes, I remember, a tanked economy and high inflation………….

May fiddle-faddling while Britain burns
Stubborn yes, but this frenzied outburst against Blair is just stupid. If only May could – what? – take her blinkers off for a moment, discover a tiny bit of flexibility in her thinking, open her eyes to the possibility of a path to statesmanship, one that she can never reach by doggedly clinging to a failed policy …
O Theresa! O Mrs May! Behold! See that Tony Blair has lit a beacon that illuminates a road to glory, one that enables you to demonstrate immense courage as the saviour of the nation (and yourself) against immense odds. Here at last is a way for your hitherto disastrous opportunism to score the greatest goal of your otherwise blighted career.
How? A few difficult steps that are blindingly obvious, Mrs May, if you have eyes to see. (Alas, a big IF.)
First, recognise that no Brexit or no-deal option has been found that ticks as many boxes as Remain. With Remain the Irish backstop problem disappears; the fears of most of industry, of science, of education, and of the sectors that depend upon European staff are assuaged. £39 billion+ is saved. Etc, etc.
Secondly, get into perspective the losses threatened by the abandonment of Brexit.
– Loss of credibility? How much credibility do you think you have now, when no Brexit proposal commands majority support in Parliament, and polls suggest that a majority of the voting public have seen through the fantasies of the Brexiteers in the light of post referendum revelations? That claim to honour the people’s vote to Leave is pretty well busted now that it’s clear that Leave will entail something very different from what its proponents described.
– Loss of support from the fishing industry? A tiny sacrifice for you, Mrs May, and the nation, compared with the gains.
– Loss of prospective control on immigration of EU citizens? Surely now not only the Tories but most of the population have realised how dependent our economy and services (e.g. agriculture, catering, health and caring, education, science …) are on EU workers. And even the Tories may have woken up to the fact that ‘Immigration’ was more a UKIP scare slogan with its unstated appeal to racialism, that masked austerity as the real cause of popular disgust with the Cameron government, and significantly motivated the Leave vote. That the EU’s ‘freedom of movement’ principle may conceivably cause some difficulties for the UK economy does not constitute a substantive argument for leaving (see below).
So, having cottoned on to the national need to reverse Brexit and the likelihood of a Parliamentary and national majority for that (properly presented), Mrs May must thirdly recognise that either the decision and attempted execution of that reversion will be taken out of her hands, or she can seize the initiative and be seen as its prime enabler.
Failure to do the latter immediately dooms her and puts Britain in jeopardy. Time is short. Further delay in allowing Parliament to vote, even on the ‘Chequers plus May deal’, defers the chances for timely cancellation of the Article 50 leave enactment. It also reduces the time for the necessary mechanism to come into play for reversing Brexit. This could be via a second referendum, with much (probably forthcoming) cooperation from the EU and much legal juggling to prevent the Article 50 deadline of 29.3.19 from being binding. But far better would be a decision by Parliament to cancel Article 50, as seems now allowable by the ECJ, without even waiting for another referendum.
How politically feasible is that? May could do it more effectively than any other politician. It would take an amazing speech. It would emphasise the huge efforts (widely recognised) that she has made to carry out the ‘will of the people’ as expressed in the referendum, as well as her deep regrets that no Brexit or no-deal possibility is available that fulfils the nation’s interests to as great a degree as remaining in the EU. However, she should not be proposing merely to remain in the EU. She should propose a new kind of proactive British participation in an EU that is ripe for reform. Certain EU policies have been shown to be wanting, principally those concerning freedom of movement and finance. She will point out that Britain can become a most (maybe the most) influential member of the EU, with strong support from many other members. ‘Freedom of movement’ has been found to fail not only the UK but other member nations, and the strictures imposed by the EU in the Eurozone have caused positive damage to Greece, Italy and Spain, to name a few. She knows that Merkel’s power is virtually at an end, and Macron is weakened by recent events in France. This is an ideal time for Britain to make its weight felt.
Can she pull it off? I guess not. That is not because the opportunity is not available to her. It is because she does not have the oomph, the statesman’s breadth of vision, flexibility or imaginative intelligence, nor maybe the humility to acknowledge her error in pushing her ‘May deal’ beyond realistic chance of success.
So, let us pray hard for a new British statesman to emerge who can seize this diamond opportunity not only to pull Britain out the god-awful mess we’re in, but to steer us into leadership of one of the world’s three mighty power blocks. We know that to abandon, and thereby weaken, it is to shoot ourselves in the proverbial foot.

As expected, Theresa May has returned from Brussels with only vague possibilities of any future clarifications. It seems unlikely that she will get sufficient support from the EU to convince our Parliament to approve her Withdrawal Agreement before 21 January. In February this year, in anticipation of the UK leaving the EU, the European Parliament voted to reduce the number of MEPs by 46 from 751 to 705, and reallocate the remaining 27 of the UK’s 73 to other states. France will be choosing its 79 candidates (+5) early in the New Year for the EU elections on 26 May.

The government will be in a quandary when the Withdrawal Agreement has been voted down, even if by a lesser majority than if the vote had been held on 11 December. Theresa May’s threat is of a ‘No Deal’ (which Parliament and the EU has no appetite for) or a ‘No Brexit’, which she repeatedly claims would be contrary to the ‘Will of the People’ as expressed in the Referendum result of June 2016. The solution seems obvious, that the current ‘Will of the People’ should be democratically tested in 2019, now that the details of the first stages of ‘The Deal’ and its alternatives are known.

It now seems clear that remaining in the EU is in the National Interest, as all the other options will leave us worse off, both as a country and as individuals. If, on the basis of evidence, and not just on the fear of a future Corbyn government, a People’s Vote decides to accept the May compromise and face years of new trade negotiations, then so be it. But if the people vote for the UK to stay in the EU and work together to reform its institutions, this must be decided well before the deadline of 29 March. Just extending Article 50 to allow more time for organising a referendum would risk losing all our 73 seats in the 2019 elections, if the vote went that way. Article 50 must be revoked first.

The urgency of the situation should concentrate the minds of all those involved. Had the meaningful vote been held and lost on 11 December, the other options could have been considered before Christmas. As it is, Theresa May has deliberately made it more difficult by leaving the vote till January, in the hope that some miracle will occur, and the three self-appointed wise men (Johnson, Davis and Rees-Mogg) will see the light and accept the inevitable. The government is making contingency plans for a ‘No Deal’ (however unlikely that may be) by stockpiling medicines and ordering Portaloos for the M20. They should also be planning for a ‘People’s Vote’. If Parliament agrees this as a way out of the impasse, the Vote can then take place with the minimum delay. It only took one day to organise the recent ‘No Confidence’ vote!