In his magnificent biography of Churchill, Andrew Roberts tells us that, when speaking of the Tory party – and especially its leaders – the Great Man always referred to them as They or Them. He despised most so-called Tories as irresolute, spineless and feeble: even as traitors. That was true in the 1930s when the party was committed to appeasing Adolf Hitler and it is still true today. Leading the treachery in those days was Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, and leader of the traitors today is Theresa May
The nation voted for Brexit. And we voted emphatically. In the referendum of 2016, more people voted for Brexit than have ever voted for anything in Britain. But the devious, treacherous Theresa May, who has always been a remainer, sees it as her vocation to overturn the people’s vote.
The ugly truth is that May has wrecked Brexit. Her Chequers plan for our withdrawal from the EU is a remainers’ charter which commits us to the customs union and prevents us from making trade agreements with the rest of the world; which ensures that British laws are second in the pecking order to EU laws; and that we shall start what is laughably referred to as our “national independence” by paying £39billion into the EU coffers. This will only be the first such payment of many and we shall actually be paying more to be “free“ from the EU than we ever paid for the “privileges” of membership. When is a withdrawal not a withdrawal? When it’s one dreamed up by the duplicitous self-server Theresa May.
I cannot imagine why May was ever voted into the leadership. During her campaign, she asked us to “Judge me on my record.” Happily, there is a lot of record on which to judge her, since she was the longest-serving home secretary since 1945. Her tenure was a conspicuous catalogue of errors and incompetence. Remember 2014 and the chaos caused by the delay in the issue of passports? May claimed this was owing to “a surge in applications,” but it turned out she had been warned the year before that her own policy of closing overseas processing offices had resulted in a backlog of 360,000 applications and weeks of delay.
She complained that the Human Rights Act permitted suspected terrorists to continue living in this country under the clause that speaks of their right “to a family life.” In a rare – and botched, of course – attempt to make a joke, she cited the case of one such suspect who was not deported “because he had a pet cat.” Then – trademark May – after so complaining, she did nothing to get the Act amended. As Home Secretary, she was in charge of the police. She cut their numbers and their budget during a long period in which the terrorist threat was at its highest. She sat back and did nothing for years while in Rotherham, Leicester, Bradford, Rochdale and a dozen other towns and cities the police failed to stop the wholesale rape and sexual abuse of under-age white girls by Muslim men. She was slow and indecisive in her pathetic attempt to intervene in the infiltration of schools in Birmingham by Islamic extremists. She described sharia courts as “beneficial” and allowed them to operate in parallel with British law – and this in spite of the fact that such courts are complicit in the severe mistreatment of Muslim women by their menfolk.
The list of her sins, negligence and ignorance, her half-baked and deranged actions and inaction, is almost endless. But the worst of her many failures was her record on immigration. As Home Secretary, it was her remit to put into practice Cameron’s declared aim to reduce the number of immigrants from over half a million every year to “the tens of thousands.” During her tenure net immigration tripled. But here is the truly hilarious bit – were it not so catastrophic for our country: May claimed she was powerless to reduce immigration “…because of Shengen, the EU’s open borders rule.” And then she voted to remain!
Away from Brexit, May has espoused economic and social policies that you might think belonged exclusively to Jeremy Corbyn. She wants to curb executive pay. As this could be achieved only by the adoption of the most draconian and demagogic policies, it would drive the best talent into the arms of our competitors. Her plans to ensure more women are appointed to company boards is yet another example of her liking for social engineering, while her other ambitions for tighter regulation of the City and a more socialistic approach to industrial relations will lead, give it time, to the sort of sclerosis which paralyses the economy in France. The sole criterion for the selection and appointment to senior jobs in commerce and industry should be competence, for when competence is jeopardised the results are always inefficiency and mediocrity. Besides, decisions about whom to appoint to senior management are the prerogative of the companies concerned and are no business of the government – especially a Conservative government. May is leading the party so far to the left that I’m tempted to say Britain is unique among the nations: not only do we have a socialist opposition, we have a socialist government as well.
Like all weak leaders, she has appointed wets and yes-men. After the referendum, what Britain needed most was the announcement of vigorous Tory economic policies. Taxes should have been cut drastically and a bonfire made of the sheaves of regulations which strangle the life out of the City. Instead, May appointed a Chancellor of the Exchequer who gave us an autumn statement so anodyne it put me to sleep. And, scandalously, May’s subsequent appointees to the home office have seen mass immigration rise to a record level.
May is a self-confessed remainer and Europhile. As Chamberlain went to Berlin and crawled to Hitler, so May has been to Brussels countless times only to capitulate to the diktats of Jean-Claude Juncker. Her whole policy is abject surrender.
Happily for Britain, in 1940 Chamberlain was dispatched and the patriot-warrior Winston Churchill was entrusted with authority to supervise the destiny of the country and lead us to victory. Tragically, there are no signs that history is about to repeat itself.
I was struck numb on discovering the vast majority of English inter war conservatives were quisling’s whom prostrated themselves before Hitler, like chamberlain.. Consider how similar modern ;Britain conservatives appear. Munich traitors by a majority. Were a tyrant with half a brain rise in europe, the Europeans would be doomed. The spirit of quisling is rampant.
The hope one is that Churchill was in the minority. One voice whom won the support of people. One mans bravery roused the nation. Classic archetype. We need more brave voices. Tiny brave mouses.
Philippic: What an apt epithet.
British Conservatives are not conservatives.
A powerful Philippic. If only it could be made to the old bat’s face in parliament. Even the BBC would be forced to report it.
When asked about a certain American president, I used to reply “Neville Chamberlain declared war to defend Poland. Barack Obama had red lines.”
May is not quite Chamberlain, simply because I cannot quite see what her red lines are.