Let me start with a poem for J.D. Vance, using the rhythm of Chesterton’s poem ‘The Rolling English Road‘, the closest we have to a hillbilly elegy. To get the rhythm going, you’ll have to pronounce every syllable of “European Union”:
The European Union panjandrums start to weep
For J.D. Vance, Veep USA, has roused them from their sleep
With rocking speech, and rolling speech, that makes a grown man cry:
He tells the Munich audience that they must surely try
To fork out more for NATO, fight for liberty of speech
The day he comes to Germany, by way of West Palm Beach.
As Vance almost put it, the UK is not so much a state, as in a state.
I have two suggestions.
The first is provoked by President Trump. He caused a bit of a storm a month or two ago when he suggested that the USA should purchase Greenland.
This is the sort of thing we are not used to nowadays but was common in previous centuries. Jefferson paid Napoleon $15 million for the purchase of Louisiana. Alaska was bought for $7.2 million under Johnson in 1867. It was very amusing, and flattering to Westminster, when a Danish former minister for the autonomous territory of Greenland, Tom Høyem, who served in the 1980s, and is now 83, claimed that the UK had the right of first refusal if Greenland were to be put up for sale. Some journalists asked the Foreign Office and British Library about this, but, as far as I know, they did not get a reply. Too busy getting rid of the Chagos Islands, possibly. Well, the USA could afford Greenland, the UK could not. The story annoyed the Prime Minister of Greenland, Múte Egede, who has been using the full force of decolonising language to suggest that Greenland should become a mighty state on its own account. Denmark was guilty of genocide, etc. It is “now time to take the next step for our country” to remove the “shackles of the colonial era and move on”, etc. The Americans would like nothing better to get Greenland to move on. A humorous US representative Buddy Carter has even introduced a bill in Congress to rename Greenland “Red White and Blueland”.
Well, forget Greenland. My suggestion is that the USA should buy the UK. England, Scotland, Wales and Ulster could be the 51st to 54th states. Ach, why not have Eire as a 55th? That would certainly wind up the EU. It would do wonders for freedom of speech. The King could remain as a sort of Governor General. I would suggest a face-saving constitutional arrangement whereby the United States could be invited to join the Commonwealth: this would enable the King to pay homage to the President as Head of the States, but also enable the President to pay homage to the King as Head of the Commonwealth. Westminster could become a mere state parliament. Oxford and Cambridge could acquire some Harvard-sized endowments. All our disaffected youth could learn guitar in Nashville and take up football scholarships in Utah and Idaho. England would become the new East Coast of America. I leave you to contemplate all the many other side-effects of this. Somehow or other, we should try to get a Union Jack on the Stars and Stripes.
The second suggestion is provoked by the UK equivalent of Buddy Carter, a home-grown humorous politician. This is Craig McKinlay, former MP, now Lord, who suggests that while the Palace of Westminster is repaired, Parliament should be moved to a floating barge on the Thames. This is a cheap alternative to moving Parliament somewhere else, or rebuilding a kitsch theatrical simulacrum of the House of Commons chamber in Elstree Studios: all the other suggestions so far have been ruinously expensive, and so the matter of restoring the Palace of Westminster is continually delayed, creating more ruinous expense.
My suggestion is that we accept McKinlay’s idea. And then we should cut the mooring of this floating barge and let it float down the Thames out into the North Sea. Perhaps, it will drift across the Channel to France, where the French police can deal with a group of immigrants who, probably, will be all too delighted to return to the European Union. What I envisage is a sort of equivalent of the ruse in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy where the useless members of the doomed planet Golgafrincham (hairdressers, insurance salesmen, security guards, management consultants etc.) are sent off in Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B to Earth, notionally simply to be got rid of, but where, alas, they eventually become our ancestors. Highly ironic. Anyhow, by analogy: if we can get all the MPs onto a debating barge with green seats, I think it will be an easy matter to get a few Fletcher Christian and Bill Sykes characters, of whom there are still a few in the UK, to cut the ropes and send our representatives off like Captain Bligh to prosper elsewhere.
After this, we form an embassy composed of Russell Brand, Nigel Farage, Paul McCartney, perhaps also the Daily Sceptic Editor-in-Chief, and anyone else who understands America, and send it to Trump’s White House to negotiate a selling price. I advise that the ambassadors walk into the Oval Office carrying copies of Art of the Deal under their arms, perhaps also bringing a display folder with some nicely etched prints of stately homes and their golf-ready grounds. David Starkey and Niall Ferguson can accompany the embassy to make sure the constitutional arrangements accord with 1689, 1707, 1776, 1801 etc. And let’s do it quick, while the bust of Churchill is still near the President’s desk.
James Alexander is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Turkey.
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Invasion of the technocrats.
A macro version of cancelling local elections.
I suspect the French people won’t tolerate it.
‘Saving Democracy’. There might be a pattern here, but I am too stupid to see it.
Shows how much conviction they have in their arguments doesn’t it, that they feel the need to remove any opposition…
According to Mike Benz the “elites” have said we have to redefine democracy from being the will of the voters to being about the sanctity of “democratic institutions” – meaning US – the military, NATO, the IMF, the World Bank, the MSM, the NGOs….
His interview a year ago with Tucker Carlson is a revelation of how the current state of censorship evolved to what it has become today:
https://rumble.com/v4e8hof-tucker-carlson-on-x-episode-75-mike-benz-on-the-national-security-state.html
In order to save democracy, we have to burn democracy…Paraphrasing from ‘the village’.
I’ve no idea whether she is guilty of what she’s been convicted for and don’t much care. I think this is probably a good thing on the whole as it makes it more obvious to more people what’s going on.
Nice to see the Telegraph getting in a holier than thou dig at the apparently “toxic” brand of RN.
You could probably find embezzlement in every party at some point. Even on the BBC someone pointed out that it’s probably money for the party rather that for personal gain, like BLM.
SNP got away with it so why is RN considered so bad?
Just a cockup/coincidence
Through an unfortunate turn of events, I had to listen to the BBC’s brand of news this morning. They described RN as “Hard Right”. It made me think how, decades ago, parties would be described as “on the left” or “on the right”, leaving room for distinction between the mainstream parties and the extremists. Nowadays, the main broadcast media never talk about parties that are right of centre without feeling the need to add the adjectives “hard”, “far” or “extreme”. Even if they occupy the space left by the former Conservative party.
Something similar is true of many Wikipedia entries. TV stations, newspapers, journalists on the political left are never described as such – the distinction is only made for anyone on the “right”. The message is – there are reasonable people who can reasonably disagree within reason – and then there is the “right wing”.
And nobody defines Hard or Far or Extreme Right. These are epithets are used to imply Fascist or Nazi.
F A Hayek: Socialism, Fascism, National Socialism all share the same roots – elevation of the State over the individual; central economic planning and control.
That being so… hands up Starmer, Macron, whatever fool is now running Germany which of you is not Hard/Far/Extreme Right. And evidently Stalin and Mao were.
Based on previous prosecutions of French Presidents, corruption appears to be a requirement of the Office.
Romania, Germany, France – The Dark Hand of the Left descends across Europe.
Watch your back, Nigel.
As for Nigel, I think his attitude is, if you can’t beat them, join them. This is also similar to what happened to Imran Kahn, as soon as he had a meeting with Putin, he was removed.
Didn’t they try this on Farage already? I seem to remember an investigation or threatened investigation about misuse of EU funds.
This is the same EU which has never been able to get auditors to sign off on its accounts.
Still haven’t heard anymore of VDLs TXT messages to Albert Bourla. I remember that Romanian MEP holding blacked out documents, where is the justice!
If they don’t get them through the voters, they get them through the courts.
Shocking, not shocked.
Wow.
I’m stunned. I shouldn’t be. But I am.
I just thought that appearing to be too brazen would hold these people back.
Romania is one thing. But France? Really?
Clearly they no longer worry about appearances, so I’m not sure there is very much left to protect us from this horrid techno totalitarianism that reigns supreme in Europe now.
What might save us is exactly that brazenness. Overreach.
Maybe. Hopefully.
You’d think that tyranny eventually gets found out. And generally it does. But not always. The North Korea example freaks me out.
Well, North Korea has not been going that long, in relation to human history. The Soviet Union eventually collapsed. Communist China have cleverly allowed a mixed economy, to deliver the goods that keep people happy. But unpleasant if you have to live through it.
I don’t like those timescales. It’s hard for me to get enthusiastic about things that might happen after I’m long gone.
I don’t like them either, for the same reason. Meanwhile we keep buggering on as best we can.
Rona was about as brazen as it gets (utter lie, scamdemic, murder, destruction etc).
Micron et al will preach about their ‘thriving democracy’, where you put your enemies in jail or kill them.
They could declare a one party state and convince most of the sheeple that the dictatorship was a ‘thriving democracy’.
I wonder what they will do to Le Pen when she is in prison? Epsteined?
“Rona was about as brazen as it gets (utter lie, scamdemic, murder, destruction etc).”
I am still gobsmacked that they got away with it.
TCW — Germany’s mad rush to conscription’
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/germanys-mad-rush-to-conscription/
Obvious, I know. Still funny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0dWo31hwpI
Thanks for posting that – yes still funny (and aren’t they skinny?)
Put a new RN candidate on the ballot (doesn’t matter who) and have Marine Le Pen stand behind them, silently, for every public appearance. And if the Powers That Be take further action against her then…
On GBN coverage of it all, the point was made that the appeal process is so sclerotic that she is, in effect, not capable of being a candidate at the next election, whatever the outcome of the appeal. So they will need another candidate – at least a physical one, if there is someone capable of taking over.
The process is the punishment
Fair point from Paul Weston, highlighting the corruption that is the EU and who the real crooks are. However, despite you guys no longer being part of the EU, we’ve seen what passes for ‘democracy’ these past years in the UK. This here makes me even less hopeful Reform will win the next election, in-fighting aside, because even if they are the front-runners leading up to the election, I don’t think they will be *allowed* to win. You just know some sort of shady shenanigans will go down nearer the time. I think polls can give a false perception and it’s rarely as black and white as whoever has the most votes wins.
”Barred from standing in the election. Fined, and jailed for two years (house arrest). Her crime? Threatening to win the French Election. This is Ursula von der Leyen’s dictatorship in action. And our Ursula is currently under investigation for real corruption, unlike the Lavrentiy Beria Lawfare waged against Le Pen. For those who don’t know, von der Leyen made an awful lot of money buying billions of euros worth of Covid-19 vaccines directly from Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla via SMS messages on her phone…. which she has now lost….”
https://x.com/PWestoff/status/1906692905177158074
When all else fails…
So now unaccountable Bureaucrats in the EU, using their provisional arm in the Judiciary, have decided that they have the authority to decide who may become a politician and be elected.
All those in UKIP pre 2016 who pointed out that there is nothing democratic about the EU are being completely vindicated.
I’ll be surprised if the French quietly put up with this despotism.
Governments and other powerful interests have been using a form of lawfare forever in the form of financial costs. Those with the deepest pockets get the best judicial outcomes. This is changing a bit where nefarious charges are brought against political opponents. The whole concept of a balanced and fair judiciary has always been questionable. It is just more overt now. This is openly revolutionary.
You have hit the nail squarely on the head! It is the Judiciary everywhere that is causing all the problems, either by giving a veneer of legitimacy to dictators trampling upon democracy, or by becoming dictatorial themselves, using “Judicial Overreach” and “Legislating from the Bench”, like that Communist Oaf de Moraes in Brazil.
All part of the Globalist dream of establishing a Global Kritocracy = Rule by Judges.
Le Pen should seek political asylum in the UK or USA and wage political war against Macron’s dictatorship.
I wish Navalny had done that, instead of walking straight into the jaws of the Lamprey Putin, now busy grinding up Slavs in the Meatgrinder War along with his secret friend the Lamprey Zelensky. Both of them happily massacring White Men in open genocide, trying to reduce the 7% down to 5% even faster.
Both Lampreys should be arrested and charged with Crimes Against Humanity.