Daily Express - 08.08.2019

12 Daily Express Thursday, August 8, 2019

DX1ST

OPPORTUNISTS: Nicola Sturgeon and John McDonnell alliance plots destruction of Britain

Cynical McDonnell

explodes a bomb

under Labour party

One Canada Square, London E14 5AP

Tel: 020 8612 7000 (outside UK: +44 20 8612 7000)

Do the Tory Brexit rebel

MPs really want this?

Start of Brexit dividend

O

NE apocalyptic threat faces this

country and it is not a misnamed

“no-deal Brexit” but the prospect of

Jeremy Corbyn entering Downing

Street as prime minister.

The toxic cocktail of hard-Left communist

economic policies, unpatriotic support for

this country’s enemies, anti-Semitism,

support for breaking up the United

Kingdom and disdain for the military and

security forces of Corbyn’s Labour would

damage this country beyond repair.

It is a truly dreadful prospect.

So Mr Corbyn’s demands that he is made

prime minister if Boris Johnson loses a vote

of confidence is a dire warning to all those

Remainer Tory MPs who think that bringing

down the Government is better than

allowing Brexit to happen.

Not only would these Remainer MPs such

as Dominic Grieve be thwarting the will of

the British people but they would open the

door to a far-Left Labour government

propped up by the invidious SNP, giving

Nicola Sturgeon the green light to rip

Scotland away from the UK. Such an

outcome would be utterly unforgivable.

The name of any Conservative MP who

allows it to happen and collaborates in such

an outcome will go down in history’s list

of ignominy. Hopefully, some of them will

be examining their consciences during

this summer break.

B

ORIS Johnson’s new Government has

in many ways proven to be a breath

of fresh air amid the political malaise

that had consumed this country. Not

just in his determination to deliver Brexit

and seize the amazing opportunities it

presents Britain but in the way his

Government is powering ahead with a

renewed domestic agenda.

The announcement of a £250million

boost to support cutting-edge artificial

intelligence treatments in the NHS being

unveiled by ministers today is a perfect

example of this new wave of positivity.

Of course, health spending was a key

pledge of the Vote Leave campaign. So what

we are seeing here, now that the Vote Leave

team has taken over the Government, is the

start of the Brexit dividend.

Don’t count out cash

W

E ARE heading towards a cashless

society, it has been suggested, in

which people use just plastic cards

or phone apps to pay for even the

smallest items. The fact that no 1p or 2p

coins were issued by the Royal Mint last

year is a sign we are getting closer to this.

But a word of warning. People still like

using proper money, both coins and notes.

Let us not move wholesale to a virtual

world of plastic because, as the old adage

says, it will leave us knowing the cost of

everything but the value of nothing.

‘They wish to stay in EU single market

but leave a more valuable UK one’

Leo McKinstry

Daily Express columnist

T

HE failure of

Westminster to deliver

Brexit has thrown

British politics into a

state of flux. Amid con-

tinuing parliamentary

gridlock and public exasper-

ation, the old two-party system

is breaking down.

In this atmosphere of chaotic

uncertainty, where Labour and

the Tories both sank below

15 per cent of the vote in

the recent European elections,

there is now constant talk of

new coalitions to counter the

loss of traditional support.

Many Conservatives, terrified

of the surge behind the Brexit

Party, want an electoral pact

with Nigel Farage.

The Liberal Democrats plot a

Remainer alliance, building on

their success last week at the

Brecon by-election, which was

helped by the Greens and Plaid

Cymru standing aside.

But for cynical opportunism,

it would be impossible to beat

the collusion that has emerged

this week between the Scottish

Nationalists and the Labour

leadership. Under this unprinci-

pled combination, which will

see the red flag flying along-

side the white-and-blue saltire,

Labour would offer Scotland a

second independence referen-

dum in return for backing to

oust the Tories from office.

Speaking at the Edinburgh

Fringe, shadow chancellor

John McDonnell, who is Jeremy

Corbyn’s closest ally, said that if

the SNP demands another vote,

Labour “would not block some-

thing like that”.

I

N RESPONSE, SNP leader

Nicola Sturgeon said that

though she was “no great

fan of Corbyn”, she would con-

sider a “progressive alliance”

with Labour that “could lock

the Tories out of government”.

This potential Corbyn-

Sturgeon collaboration would

be both a farce of democracy

and a lethal threat to Britain’s

future. The SNP despises the

very existence of the United

Kingdom, seeking its demise

after more than 300 years of

history. Institutionally hostile to

England, desperate to cultivate

Caledonian grievances, it has

nothing but disdain for the

concept of Britain’s interests.

If the latest McDonnell

manoeuvre succeeds, this anti-

British party will be able to

dictate a disastrous new course

for our nation, both by helping

to install a hard-Left regime in

Downing Street and by driving

through the break-up of the

United Kingdom.

Not content with fuelling

Sturgeon’s destructive ambi-

tions, McDonnell also parroted

the SNP narrative of whingeing

victimhood when he described

Westminster as “the English

Parliament”. The use of such a

label, so fashionable north of

the border, is absurd.

Far from being exclusionary,

the Commons has 59 MPs from

Scotland, 40 from Wales and 18

from Northern Ireland.

If anything, the English are

the losers for, unlike the other

three nations, they do not have

their own devolved assembly.

McDonnell may have smiled

his typical vulpine grin as he

spelled out the case for a

second independence referen-

dum, but he has just exploded a

bomb under his own party.

At a stroke, he demolished

Labour’s credentials as a union-

ist movement. No wonder many

of Labour’s Scottish members

are furious. The Edinburgh MP

Ian Murray said McDonnell’s

“utterly irresponsible com-

ments betray our party’s inter-

national values”.

Until the arrival of Corbyn,

Labour was implacably opposed

to the SNP. In fact, Tony Blair’s

government introduced a

Scottish Parliament largely as a

means of dousing the flames of

nationalism. In the same vein,

the Scottish Labour Party cam-

paigned ferociously against the

cause of independence in the

2014 referendum, their stance

epitomised on the eve of poll-

ing by Gordon Brown’s passion-

ate defence of the union. “What

we have built by sacrificing and

sharing, let no narrow national-

ism split asunder,” he declared.

But Corbyn does not have an

ounce of this spirit. A puerile

revolutionary devoid of patriot-

ism, he instinctively shares the

SNP’s anti-British agenda.

This is a man who failed to

sing the national anthem on his

first appearance as Opposition

leader, yet has stood in tribute

to dead IRA terrorists.

L

IKE Labour, the SNP is

riddled with hypocrisy.

The Nationalists blather

about the wishes of the Scottish

people but refuse to accept the

2014 result, which was meant

to be a “once-in-a-generation

decision”. They proclaim their

desire for independence from

the English, but yearn for

rule by Brussels. They seek to

remain in the EU single market,

but long to leave the far more

valuable UK market.

Neither leaderships are fit to

guide the destiny of our great

country.

It would be a tragedy if their

new association brought them

to power.

Picture: PA, REUTERS