I Intend To Escape ......................And Come Back

Journalistic Solidarity From Shepherd's Bush to Qatar

Yesterday's Evening Standard saw the BBC's World Affairs Editor, John Simpson, complaining about the pressure Qatar is under to close down Al-Jazeera. He wants to see the West supporting the station.

One of Simpson's lines particularly caught my attention:

"It may have been accused of being slanted in favour of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood movement in Egypt and elsewhere but it employs talented ex-colleagues of mine from the BBC, and I've always felt its heart is in the right place".

It is a sign of just how lightweight Simpson is, that whilst showing solidarity to his old BBC muckers, he does not actually get the main problem with Al-Jazeera. That is its ability to take in western liberals by saying one thing in its English language programming, and something entirely different in its Arabic material. Consider these findings from one US think tank:

"Aljazeera Arabic, in contrast, has much less freedom to report on regional developments -- including in Qatar -- than the English site. Very little criticism of Doha can be found in Arabic"

or the wave of resignations among its staff because of this subservience to the Qatari royals. More recently Al-Jazeera's racism re-surfaced, for once in English, when it blamed climate change on the Jews.

Either Simpson does not know these things, in which case he is a fool. Or he does know it, and decided it did not matter.

Brexit Pessimism

I have rarely felt as pessimistic about Brexit happening as I do this morning.

David Davis talking about staying in the single market. Liberal elites, from Canterbury to Kensington, discovering their electoral as well as their cultural power. The future members of that elite, our students, voting with it as a bloc. A dead duck in No.10 whose only attribute was as an administrator. No UKIP to speak of. Whilst Corbyn now knows he can win, the smallest part of his grand alliance, and the one with least social capital, are the returning Brexit voters. Emily Thornberry or Sir Keir Starmer would happily throw those Labour voters, in Thurrock or Crewe, under their white vans in an instant.

The potential fiddle is this. Contrary to popular opinion, the split between Vote Leave and Leave.EU was not over personalities, what weight to give immigration as a campaign issue, or what role to give Nigel Farage. The split was over the failure of the Vote Leave campaign’s leadership to give clear assurances they would not accept a second referendum on membership of the single market. UKIP MEPs pressed Vote Leave Campaign Director Dominic Cummings on this, and he would not give any guarantees. They left feeling his primary concern on this issue was the unity of the Conservative Party.

The Tories have not maintained that unity – Theresa May is likely to be torn apart like a fox set upon by a pack of hounds. But the potential ‘fix’ is there for all to see – staying in the single market would satisfy our cultural elites (the Thornberrys and Starmers of this world) and the Conservative centre. It would mean the European Union still determines what we can do, and cannot do, in huge swathes of our political and economic lives.

That is not what we voted for on 23 June 2016. The question is how do we stop the will of the people being subverted in this way?