Tone deaf

Tony Blair, now there’s a man of principle and single-minded dedication to a noble goal.

The noble goal to which Tone is single-mindedly dedicated is becoming the EU president, a vantage point from which he could watch his millions turn into billions. However, since he’s still nominally British, the goal will never be achieved if Britain leaves the EU.

The upshot is clear: Tone has to apply all his inexhaustible energy and mediocre but perfidious mind to the task of dynamiting Brexit. He doesn’t care how stupid and devious he sounds in the process. Or perhaps he simply lacks any self-critical faculties.

For example, the other day he said something inane without realising it: “Brexit isn’t the way to solve all Britain’s problems.” Really? And there I was, thinking that the King’s Road will instantly become free of potholes the moment we leave.

I don’t know how many Brexiteers Tony knows, but I number many among my friends and have talked to quite a few more. This large group includes MPs, MEPs, UKIP functionaries, priests, professors and simply intelligent people.

Yet not once have I heard anyone suggest that Brexit is the answer to all our problems. No one expects it to be – any more than a man who has paid off his mortgage can expect to get rid of haemorrhoids, stop his wife from bitching about unwashed dishes and finally score with his secretary. The only problem he has solved is those crippling monthly repayments.

By the same token, Brexit is supposed to solve one problem only, that of loss of sovereignty. We won’t become richer, healthier or better-educated as a result. It’s just that, rather than taking orders from Angie and Jean-Claude, we’ll be governed by our own parliament, upholding our own constitution.

Brexit isn’t just the best solution to that problem, but the only one. Hence old Tone is talking in daft non sequiturs, possibly without realising it and definitely not caring. He and his ilk are congenitally alien to the very notion of intellectual rigour and moral probity.

On the latter point, witness Tony’s recent earth-shattering pronouncement on the holiest commandment in the EU canon: free movement of people. By the sound of him, Tony must have met with some unidentified EU officials in a smoky cellar in Brussels or elsewhere. There he made them promise that, if he manages to keep Britain in the EU, they’ll turn a blind eye to us introducing tough immigration controls. Or at least they won’t mind Tony making promises to that effect.

Now it’s useful to remember that, as PM, Tony flung Britain’s doors wide-open not only to EU migrants but also to a million-odd Muslims. According to his trusted accomplice Peter Mandelson, that was systematic policy aimed at diluting the British electorate to a point where it becomes less British and therefore more prone to vote in the likes of Blair and Mandelson.

That is to say that Blair coming out in favour of tightening immigration controls is akin to Dr Shipman campaigning for better care of the elderly, the Wests for parental control in bringing up children and Corbyn for denationalising the NHS.

One would think that Tony would be hard-pressed to explain the cosmic cynicism of this turnaround. But his sleeve is densely stuffed with inanities, and he promptly whipped out another one: “There is no diversion possible from Brexit without addressing the grievances which gave rise to it. Paradoxically, we have to respect the referendum vote to change it.”

Let me see if I get this right: the way to respect the referendum vote is to ignore it. I wonder if Tony had first taken this ‘paradox’ out for a test drive, for example by explaining to Cherie why he ignores her all the time. I’m sure she’d accept this as a sign of respect.

But, quite apart from the sheer stupidity and dishonesty of this ‘paradoxical’ statement, what I find interesting is Blair’s deafness to the rumble among the people he governed for 10 years. This tone-deafness is doubtless caused by the tinnitus of the Remainers’ propaganda, both in Britain and especially in Brussels, Tony’s spiritual home.

If people repeat lies for long enough, they begin to believe them, and Tony is clearly in the grip of self-delusion. He and his accomplices seem to believe that the British voted to shake the EU’s dust off their feet simply because they hate foreigners.

Assuage this prevalent xenophobia by limiting immigration, and they’ll joyously march into the Fourth Reich either run or at least represented locally by its gauleiter Herr Tony. Now Tone doubtless keeps his ear to the ground, but it’s the wrong ground.

One would like to believe that the British voted for Brexit upon careful consideration of the country’s constitutional history and its incompatibility with any outside authority diminishing the power of Parliament and reducing Her Majesty to being merely an EU citizen. But that temptation must be resisted, however reluctantly.

The British made the correct decision to leave the EU largely for the same reason they made the wrong decision almost to get Jeremy Corbyn into 10 Downing Street. They’re disgusted with our governing elite, whose spivocratic lies are causing a powerful reflux. In other words, they’re disgusted with spivs like Tony, Dave and Tessa – just as Americans are disgusted with their own spivs inhabiting both parties.

And yes, the British probably prefer their home-grown nonentities to the foreign variety, if only for the empty pleasure of being able to replace one set of their own spivs with another every few years. But limiting the number of Romanians arriving at these shores isn’t going to “address the grievances” that have led to the Brexit vote. Fewer Romanians won’t produce more Remainers.

Removing the likes of Blair from the public eye would be a better idea, but even that wouldn’t quite quell the brewing resentment. The West has sown the wind and it’s now reaping the whirlwind.

The wind is produced by the likes of Blair; the resulting whirlwind may well sweep away not only our corrupt politics but also every semblance of order. But he’s deaf to the sounds of the howling wind – his kind always are.