The out campaign have got themselves in a bit of a mess again. Still warring over who is to be their public face with Fromage hissing and spitting like a cornered cat and Aaron Banks as swaggeringly arrogant as he is deeply unpleasant, a complex intellectual conundrum is confounding the Parliamentary Boners. No, not a peep at Boris’s browsing habits, but those two Titans of political philosophy, Peter Bone and Phillip Hollobone, who grace the pages of our great organ of truth the Daily Mail today. This is all about the rather good news that there are more people in employment in the UK since records began. But wait a moment, they are not all ruddy faced, horny handed sons of British soil. No, dammit, quite a few of them are garlic munching, sausage nibbling foreigners from the EU. God, and some of them are Rumanian and we know what they are like. So thus spoke the oracle Bone this morning,“this breaks the myth that EU migrants are coming for benefits……if we had controls of our borders we could stop them taking jobs that British people could fill.” The other Boner said something similar.
So have you spotted the problem? The myth that EU migrants come over here to take our benefits. Such myth that the likes of the Boners and other intellectual giants such as O’Patz, have been peddling for years. And there is not a shred of evidence that these migrants are taking jobs that we Brits are desperate to take. So you might think that this is all a little desperate. But even a committed Remainer like me knows that the public find it incomprehensible that British taxpayers are forking out child benefit to kids who are not even living in the UK. How the Polish Prime Minister can say that it is discriminatory to put a stop to this scandal is beyond even my fetid imagination.
But although the OUTers are a swivelled eyed bunch of derangees who bore for Britain I have not been overly impressed with the leadership of the REMAINERs. Could we not have done rather better than Stewart Rose? Not quite as inarticulate as Lester Piggott, but he is making a promising go at it. And he does look like the the sort of man who would cross the road to adore his reflection in a shop window.
I appreciate that there is a school of thought that until we know what deal Cameron has done with Brussels it is difficult to put a positive case for the EU. But this is barmy and bordering on the dangerous. Apart from Ken Clarke, who of any substance regularly paints the EU in a positive light? The OUTERs have won the argument on censorship. They say the BBC is biased, the CBI don’t speak for business, that anyone who has had any connection with Brussels is a stooge. In short, anyone who puts forward a sensible case for us remaining in the EU is nothing more than a paid mouthpiece of the Commission. It really is time that the REMAINERs come out fighting. And soon. I do hope that John Major takes the lead. He is not a toxic brand like Mandelson and Blair and has that rare quality in a politician in that he is trusted by the people. He knows more than anyone how to deal with the Byzantine practices of Brussels.
So REMAINERs stop being such wimps. If you are not careful our silver fox will be shot we will be sleep walking out of Europe.
