Tories must go with Boris Johnson if they want to survive or they’ll end up as dead as a dodo
FOR the Tories, the party is nearly over. They might dump Theresa May and replace her with Boris Johnson – their only real hope – but they’ve left it pretty darned late.
Every day lost is another day wasted.
The warp-speed rise of Nigel Farage’s month-old Brexit Party reveals a deep and perhaps irreversible fury among betrayed Leave voters of all parties, especially the Tories.
Polls show Nigel’s insurgents with more support in next week’s EU elections than Tory and Labour combined, reinforcing the punishment beating from real voters at the local elections.
Polls are just snapshots, but money talks — and the Brexit Party is awash with it.
Hundreds of thousands are signing up at £25 a time.
When people part with their hard-earned cash like this, they mean it. They won’t be coming back to the main parties any time soon.
At the 11th hour, Tories are finally beginning to panic. Even sopping wet Remainers can see the writing on the wall and want Theresa May out as fast as possible.
FUDGED STITCH-UPS
They propped her up as leader last December because they could not bear the idea of BoJo as PM.
Many now regret it. They see Boris Johnson as their last chance of turning a fast-rising tide. The Brexit Party is on a roll which threatens the Government not just next week but in the next General Election, which cannot be far away.
By then, without a bold and credible leader to address head-on the biggest issue of our age, why would anyone vote Tory?
Love him or loathe him — and the overwhelming majority of grassroots Tories adore him — Boris is their only possible champion.
Nobody else, whatever their merits, is even recognisable to the voting public.
They need to act fast. Nigel Farage yesterday predicted we are all in for a shock as his party mops up seats in the EU Parliament.
TORY PANIC
That prospect has grown since the recent BBC4 fly-on-the-wall film of arrogant, foul-mouthed Eurocrats salivating as this country becomes an EU “colony”.
It grew again during last week’s BBC Question Time, when Farage reduced Anna “Suck It Up” Soubry to rare silence, saying: “You don’t listen, Anna. You never listen.”
And it grew still further yesterday as wavering Tories watched BBC host Andrew Marr appeared to paint Farage and his supporters as uncouth racists.
The Tory Party has one last card to play. They must change their leader immediately after next week’s massacre.
Boris, if chosen, must sack rubbish Chancellor Phil Hammond, tell Brussels to reopen talks and get Britain ready to leave the EU without a deal in October if they refuse.
But first, to have any hope of the premiership, he must dismiss any move by Remainers to lay their sticky fingers on his campaign.
Leave voters have lost trust in mainstream politicians
He cannot and, I understand, will not agree a “Bamber” deal with so-called kingmaker Amber Rudd.
Any alliance with this last-gasp Remainer would kill his chances stone dead.
Leave voters have lost trust in mainstream politicians.
They will not accept any more fudged stitch-ups or broken promises.
Public fury at the damage inflicted on this country’s democratic estate by Remainers has been slow to rouse.
Now their fury, expressed in local elections and the rise of the Brexit Party, has driven Remainers into shambolic retreat.
SPONTANEOUS SURGE
There will be no second referendum, Alastair Campbell.
Chuka Umunna’s pathetic lifeboat — what’s it called? — has sunk at its moorings.
The Lib Dems are still an unprincipled rabble.
And nobody knows where Labour stands on the biggest question facing Britain.
The Remainers’ stage-managed demo by 400,000 pre-printed banner wavers on March 23 has been totally eclipsed by the Brexit Party’s sensational and spontaneous surge in real numbers.
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Project Fear has been put to the sword by economic reality.
Now there is one last chance to silence Remainers and heal the rift which has split this nation for three painful years — by delivering a prosperous independent nation outside the European Union.
Only a full British Brexit can do that.
Hidden women
IN Iran, men have been ordered not to look at women during Ramadan, the month-long annual fast now in its second week.
Women are required to hide themselves “even more” behind the hijab.
In Afghanistan, the BBC reports, religious police want to ban all non-religious music, especially that involving women, because it provokes “sexual excitement”.
“Women’s voices are provocative and tempting to men,” says a Taliban official.
“Whether singing or talking, it should not be heard in public.
“Only your brother, father or husband are allowed to hear a woman’s voice.”
Meanwhile in Britain, the Government is considering adopting a definition of Islamophobia which could make criticism of Islam a hate crime.
- This column, in the box headlined 'Hidden women' previously stated that the Government was proposing laws which risked making criticism of Islam a hate crime. In fact, at the time of publication, no such laws had been proposed by the Government. Rather, the Government was considering adopting a definition of Islamophobia which, in the view of the columnist, risked making criticism of Islam a hate crime. This correction has been published following an upheld ruling by the Independent Press Standards Organisation.