Have we all gone mad? Whatever happened to Freedom, Liberty, Justice, and Democracy?

 

Whatever Happened to Freedom, Liberty, Justice and Democracy?

 With thanks to Jimi Cazot and the Telegraph.

 

If you went back five years and asked a friend to predict the next five years and they told you the following, you would think they had gone mad, and yet?

"In the future, many of your national assets will be owned by China.   Most of the goods you buy will be made there too, which you will not purchase from your fellow countrymen, but a sole supplier owned by an American.

 The most successful politicians will not be elder statesmen committed to public service but young upstarts who view the job as a stepping-stone towards tremendous personal wealth in later life.

 Your Government will pass bills to quash peaceful protest.   This won’t be limited to the intelligence services but bodies like the environmental and food standards agencies too. When you ask “why”, nobody will be able to tell you.

 Your Government will set up ‘nudge units’ staffed by unknown behavioural scientists.   They will tell you what to eat, drink and how you should behave.   There will be patronising health and safety signs everywhere you look.

 “The media will grow dependent on Government advertising revenue and cease reporting opinions and events that contradict official narratives.

The internet will be dominated by a small number of big-tech companies who will delete all information that they disagree with.

In the name of safeguarding students from harm, schools and universities will cease debate and enquiry. People with contrary views will be barred from campuses. Even student newspapers will be censored by ‘sensitivity readers.’.

At work, you will be made to undergo psychological re-education.   The people lecturing you will have no knowledge of psychology but nonetheless try to change you at a subconscious level.

 People will be sacked from their jobs for saying there are two biological sexes or for telling an ill-judged joke. They will not be forgiven if they apologise.

Every major institution and employer will sign up to this censorious culture and soon you will censor yourself when speaking to friends and colleagues without even knowing that you have done so.

When a virus emerges that only kills 0.3% of those who catch it – the majority of which older than the average span of a life – you will be bombarded, 24-hours a day, by terrifying public messaging.

 The police will stop you from meeting a friend for a coffee in the park. They will rummage through your shopping bags to make sure you have only bought things that they deem essential.   They will film you as you walk in the countryside and put the footage on the internet so to shame you.

Neighbours will be told to spy on neighbours, and when you have friends round for dinner the police will knock on your door and give you a fine.

You will be told to stay two metres away from other people at all times.   You will be made to wear a facemask even though there is no evidence that they do anything at all.   When this becomes apparent, scientists will say you must wear them so as not to frighten other people.   Your freedom will end where another’s fear begins.

Families will be kept from dying loved ones.   Widows will be denied the comfort of human touch. Daughters will be arrested for collecting their mothers from care homes.

 Vast numbers of children will be sent home from school and denied a proper education just because one classmate lost their sense of smell.

 Weddings will be cancelled.   Nightclubs will be closed.   Churches will be shut.   Singing and dancing will be prohibited.   Lovers will be kept apart.

You will be told to have an anti-virus vaccine although the vaccine isn’t compulsory, yet those who refuse might be sacked from their jobs.  They will be made to queue for longer at airports.   They will be put under house arrest if they come into contact with someone who has the virus, whilst those who have had it will not. They will be stopped from going to bars and stadiums. There will be two classes of people: the clean and the unclean.

Your unassailable and decadent leaders will ignore the rules they set for others again and again, blissfully untroubled by the cries of hypocrisy.

Global leaders, bureaucrats, scientists, royalty, and the super-rich will meet in private to discuss how we all must live. They will say there are too many people and not enough resources, but nobody will ask who we should get rid of and how.   Blinded by hubris, they’ll believe that they alone can bring about a utopian future.   The language they speak will be impenetrable to most, it will be made up of meaningless phrases like ‘stakeholder capitalism’, ‘collectivisation’, ‘sustainable development’ and ‘Build Back Better’.   Every now and then, however, they’ll make things very clear: “You will own nothing.   You will rent everything.   You will be happy.”

Few will question what this means, how it will be brought about or what mandate they have for doing so.   Those who do, or any of the above, will be insulted, ridiculed and so pushed to the margins of society that they are effectively silenced.

Most will stand on their front doorstep at 8pm every Thursday, clapping their hands and bashing saucepans."

 

The Resignation of Theresa May by John Strafford

 

The Resignation of Theresa May

By

John E. Strafford

In the July issue of “The Critic” Christopher Howarth writes in an article headed Mrs May: My Part in Her Downfall:

“The battle to secure a clean Brexit was won only after the European Research Group secretly obtained a copy of the 1922 Committee rules”.

“a striking fact became obvious quite early on.   There were no publicly available rules of the 1922 Committee.   They were discussed, reported on, people believed they knew what they meant but there was no actual copy”.

“I asked some ERG MPs on the 1922 executive to request a copy from Sir Graham Brady, but they were rebuffed”.

“We managed to find a copy of the rules, the only copy in existence outside Sir Graham Brady’s desk.   I guarded it closely”.

“The rules were dynamite: the famous “no contest within a year” guarantee was moonshine”.   The 22 Executive could change the rules in an afternoon to give us another leadership election.   I now knew what I assume only No. 10 and Sir Graham Brady did: if we defeated May we could get rid of her as leader.”

“No. 10 had a plan to deliver Chequers and Believing that Theresa May’s premiership was secure until 12 December 2019 thought they had time to finally force through their deal.   They were wrong, but only three people knew they were wrong.   I was one of them.” 

 I, John Strafford was another of them.   I set out below how the “missing rules” became public:

After the Conservative Party lost the General Election in 2005, the Leader, Michael Howard MP, announced his resignation but at the same time proposed that the Party Constitution be changed so that MPs had the last say on who should be Leader of the Party rather than the ordinary Party members.   I, and many others, opposed this change and the motion for changing the Constitution was defeated.   During the campaign to elect a new Leader I became aware that the rules for selecting the Leader were incorporated in the Rules of the 1922 Committee, so I wrote a letter to the then Director of Campaigning, Gavin Barwell, at CCHQ asking for a copy of the rules.   I received a copy from Sir Michael Spicer who was then the Chairman of the 1922 Committee as shown below.

On Tuesday 9 April 2019 the Bruges Group held a lunch time meeting in London about Brexit.   One of the speakers was Anne Marie Morris MP, who I had met on a previous occasion.   During the course of the meeting the question arose as to why the MPs did not get rid of the Prime Minister, Theresa May.   Anne Marie Morris gave the standard reply that under the Party Constitution there could not be a Leadership Election within 12 months of the previous one.   At the end of the meeting, I spoke to Anne Marie Morris, who was a member of ERG, and told her that the rules relating to a Leadership election were in the 1922 Committee rules which could be changed.   She asked me to write to her.

On 10 April 2019 I sent the following email to her with a copy to Christopher Hope, the Chief Political Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph:

In the morning of 11 April Anne Marie e-mailed me in response to my e-mail:

“John,

I’ve tried to get all to see this.   The media are saying this just gives the power to alter the timing, not trigger an election.   Thoughts?   I need a bit more ammunition as to how this can work!   Thanks.

Anne Marie”

 Anne Marie was interviewed on the BBC World at One programme.   In the afternoon I e-mailed her:

Anne Marie,

Brilliant interview on the World at One.   You could be changing the course of history.   Well done.   The media are wrong, see below:

I then sent to her examples as to how change could be achieved.  

I stated:

“The 1922 Committee is perfectly entitled to make changes.   It’s only obligation under the Party Constitution is that they “shall be determined by the Executive Committee of the 1922 Committee after consultation of the Board”.

If as required the Board is consulted, 1922 Committee can proceed, even if the Board disagrees.

However, if the 1922 Committee does proceed the Party Board using Clause 17 of the Party Constitution can then overturn it.   That would lead to a serious clash, particularly if the 1922 Committee had the support of the voluntary party with it and they were making the Party more democratic, and it could be seen that ordinary Party members were getting more power.   In these circumstances the Party Board would be seen to be out of touch not only with the voluntary party but also the Parliamentary Party.  The whole legitimacy of the Party Board would come into question, e.g., why is the Party Chairman and a Deputy Chairman appointed by the leader and not elected by the members of the Party and accountable to them.   Is the Party Chairman just a spokesman for the Leader and not speaking in the interest of the whole Party?

I am sure in this situation the Party Board would back down.”

At the same time as I emailed Anne Marie Morris MP I also included a copy of the email to Christopher Hope of The Daily Telegraph as he had expressed interest in the idea.   I had already been in contact with him as I was trying to get Dominic Grieve deselected as my MP.

Christopher came back to me very quickly and asked for a full copy of the Rules of the 1922 Committee, which I sent to him immediately.

Anne Marie then emailed me and asked if I would talk direct to journalists/   I said “yes”.

On 13 April Bill Cash MP of the ERG Group telephoned me and we had a long conversation in which he asked me to send him a report on changing the Leadership election rules and for a full copy of the Rules, which I did.

Late on 13 April the Telegraph published an article on its web site by Sir Michael Spicer and Archibald Hamilton saying the rules could be changed. 

On 14 April the Sunday Telegraph printed the article.   The rest is history.

As Christopher Howarth writes: “ The ’22 Executive went from being split on the desire to act, but not knowing they could act, to having clear authority from the last two Chairmen – who had written the rules – that they could and, indeed, should call a new confidence vote.

News of this development was greeted with shock in Downing Street,   Legal threats were made, but went nowhere.   Sir Graham Brady had to deliver the bad news.   Theresa May had to resign.”

After publication by the Sunday Telegraph, I was inundated by journalists who wanted a copy of the Rules of the 1922 Committee.   They had been told I was the only person with a copy!

It is one of the supreme ironies that it was Gavin Barwell who asked Michael Spicer to send a copy of the rules to me and it was the same Gavin Barwell who as Head of Theresa May’s office stopped anyone getting a copy of the rules.

Mrs May announced her resignation as Prime Minister on 24 May 2019