The above footage was shot on 4th June, 1999. It is of the destruction of HMAS Torrens (DE-53) by HMAS Farncomb (SSG-74) in a final series of combat systems trials, successfully fired a Mk-48 torpedo at the stricken frigate. It is interesting to note is it not, that the RAN chose to use the WW2 era USN flag superior, “DE” and not the RN’s “F”.
Michel Barnier’s speech (http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-17-4765_en.htm) made in Brussels yesterday – this link repeated from yesterday’s article – illustrated the size of the gulf that lies between the standard of the debate about Brexit in the UK and that going on in the EU. Whereas many of the EU’s governing, managerial and technocratic class are fully aware of the consequences, not only of a “no deal Brexit” but also to the practical limitations and restrictions that will be inevitable with any Brexit deal that lies OUTSIDE the EEA, we have in “Dear Old Blighty” by contrast, a void. Nature of course abhors a vacuum and this void has been filled with all manner of unrealistic and delusional nonsense about deep and meaning trading relationships!
Therefore we have been and seem destined to have the most surreal of all spectacles take place before our eyes; of a cabinet minister, David “Dimwit” Davis waffle on whilst the EU negotiating team MAY be asking, “What the hell is going on?”
You will note Dear Reader, we use the word “may”!
This is because if MIGHT be a case of a political equivalent of the sinking of HMAS Torrens!
The vessel in the sights being HMGC [Her Majesty’s Government’s Charade] Brexit!
In other words they are setting out to: “carry out the mandate of the British People given by the referendum of Thursday 23rd June 2016” in the confident expectation that other parties will successfully torpedo it!
You see, for the Tories, such a strategy has a LOT to recommend it.
For a start in seeking from the EU everything that UKIP is calling for, hereinafter referred to as “the impossible”, they have managed to keep on side their own zealots such as Messrs. Redwood and Rees-Mogg. UKIP’s most significant figure, Nigel Farage has most conveniently left the UK political scene. It is difficult to understate the value to Madame Mayhem of Mr Farage’s absence. You see, Dear Reader the vast majority of British People have never heard of Henry Bolton. And they never will!
The whole essence of Madame Mayhem’s “cunning plan” – one more devious that Edmund, Lord Blackadder would ever devise – would be to have other political actors halt Brexit either through legal action, parliamentary action or a combination of both resulting in a revocation of Article 50 enabling Madame to say to the voters that she had “kept faith and strove to implement the mandate she had been given.
It is difficult to conceptualise a scenario where a Tory politician would deliberately, with the knowledge of the consequences flowing there-from, contrive or engineer a “no deal Brexit” with the intention of causing a crisis that would result in the UK’s re-entry into the EU and entry into the Eurozone because the resultant chaos would destroy the chances of any electoral success for decades. And it is a truism that politicians do want to see their parties do well.
UNLESS:
However, in these surreal circumstances we have to seek to conceptualise a scenario were a Tory politician would do what common political sense would suggest they would not do in a month of Sundays!
A possible reason of course is to be found here: http://www.nationaldebtclock.co.uk/
The size of the UK’s debt of of such a significance, some members of the UK’s political, managerial and technocratic elite may have come to the conclusion that solving this problem is beyond the capabilities of any democratically elected UK government to solve. The solution? An undemocratic government! Namely, the EU!
This, we admit sounds fantastic but let us remember what Sherlock Holmes said:
“You will not apply my precept,” he said, shaking his head. “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” From The Sign of the Four – Chapter 6.
Remember, there is an awful lot on money and vested interests tied up and located within the City of London!
These vested interests do know that a Labour government led by comrades Corbyn and McDonnell would only make the UK’s indebtedness much, much worse. These vested interests may have come to the conclusion that the best solution is “short term pain” [a no deal or crash Brexit] for long term gain [UK membership of the EU, the Eurozone and the Schengen Area – this is because the “Emergency Re-entry will be sans all earlier “opt-outs”!]
Historical note: U-27 was a Type VIIA (7A) U-boat. Her keel was laid down in November 1935 in Bremen. She was commissioned in August 1936. Her war was a short one. She made only one war patrol under the command of Korvettenkapitän Johannes Franz. She sank two trawlers, the Davara on 13th September 1939 and the Rudyard Kipling on 16th September 1939. Following this she was hunted down and sunk west of Lewis, Scotland, by depth charges from the destroyers HMS Fortune, Faulknor and Forester. All 38 crewmen survived and were made prisoners for the remainder of the war.
Speaking the Truth unto the Nation
