The Only Thing Worse Than Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn Would Be A Military Coup Removing Him

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

Troops Westminster Parliament

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The Armed Forces deserve our strong support in the face of ongoing budget cuts and the depletion of their capabilities, but we must never tolerate the interference of arrogant generals in our democracy

Jeremy Corbyn’s socialist policies, well-intentioned though some of them are, would bring Britain to ruin so quickly that the damage would quickly become irreparable. But does that give military leaders the right to openly muse about destabilising a hypothetical Corbyn government, or launching their own Very British Coup?

Apparently so, according to comments made to the Sunday Times by a senior serving Army general, and widely reported in the press:

The senior serving general, speaking anonymously to the Sunday Times, said Mr Corbyn’s victory has been greeted with ‘wholesale dismay’ in the army.

He added: ‘There would be mass resignations at all levels and you would face the very real prospect of an event which would effectively be a mutiny.

‘Feelings are running very high within the armed forces. You would see a major break in convention with senior generals directly and publicly challenging Corbyn over vital important policy decisions such as Trident, pulling out of Nato and any plans to emasculate and shrink the size of the armed forces.

‘The Army just wouldn’t stand for it. The general staff would not allow a prime minister to jeopardise the security of this country and I think people would use whatever means possible, fair or foul to prevent that. You can’t put a maverick in charge of a country’s security.’

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The Moral Case For Conservatism

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

Conservatism - Moral Case 3

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In the Age of Corbyn, conservatives must be unafraid to promote and defend their ideas in clear moral terms

Who dares to make the moral case for conservatism?

The parties of the political Left shamelessly portray themselves as virtuous warriors in the titanic struggle between altruistic socialism and selfish conservatism, and are adept at debating political issues using the language of morality and “social justice”. It comes naturally, never sounding forced or contrived – websites like the Huffington Post, Left Foot Forward and LabourList are full of earnest articles penned by young writers who take for granted that theirs is the only legitimate moral perspective on the world.

Not so conservatives. We conservatives have tended to shy away from the moral discussion, afraid to set out our strongly-held beliefs in moral terms and preferring to focus on dry and often negative arguments about the risks posed by the Left. But by debating the issues on the Left’s terms and focusing on pragmatism above all else, we have largely ceded the moral high ground to the Left.

This did not matter so much when Ed Miliband, a thoroughly uninspiring centrist, was in charge of the Labour Party. But in the new age of Jeremy Corbyn – when the Labour Party is on the brink of re-adopting genuinely left-wing policies – it is disturbing that Corbyn’s ideas are given the weight of moral imperative while right-wing rebuttals too often sound technocratic and uninspiring.

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EU Sock Puppets: Brussels Propaganda From The Mouth Of A Familiar Face

Samuel Hooper3 Comments

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Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan gives us something to consider when the pro-Europeans inevitably roll out their long list of charities and other non-governmental organisations endorsing an “In” vote in the coming Brexit referendum.

The EU has form when it comes to bribing its citizens with their own money – that’s how broadcasters which receive money from the EU come to show passionately pro-European and rabidly anti-UKIP mockumentaries ahead of key national elections.

It’s also how nearly every large infrastructure project in Britain seems to come stamped with a “funded by the EU” plaque prominently placed to take all the credit for something which would have been built anyway – and probably for lower cost – had the money gone straight from taxpayers to the project rather than through the Brussels pork machine first.

So it should come as no surprise to anyone when a list of household name organisations dutifully line up to warn us of impending Armageddon if Britain were to do what every other successful economy in the world outside Europe does, and face the world as a strong and autonomous nation, willing to build partnerships to face global challenges but never subordinate our own national interest to the 1950s dream of ever-closer union at any price.

Our duty remains to look critically at these claims, and determine what (if any) merit is left when the self-preservation instinct and ulterior motives of the organisation in question are stripped away.

#EUSockPuppet

EU Propaganda - EU Regional Development Fund - EUSockPuppet

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Nicola Sturgeon And The SNP Are Trying To Blackmail Britain

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

Nicola Sturgeon - SNP - Scottish Independence - IndyRef - Blackmail

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First published at Conservatives for Liberty

For the sake of everyone else in the United Kingdom, 2016 must not be another year of coercion and blackmail by selfish Scottish nationalists

Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, has presumed to tell the elected Prime Minister of the UK that our country is on “borrowed time”, and that if we do not mend our ways and immediately start enacting left-wing policies which were comprehensively rejected in the 2015 general election, we will lose the pleasure of Scotland’s company in the United Kingdom.

From the Telegraph:

Ms Sturgeon has prompted speculation about a quick second referendum by promising the SNP’s 2016 Holyrood election manifesto will contain details of potential “triggers” for another vote, such as the UK leaving the EU, and a timescale.

However, amid warnings it would be the nationalists’ last chance, she has made clear she will only call another vote when she is sure of victory.

[..] she warned David Cameron that Scots would weigh up independence “against the alternative” of Westminster rule and warned that he was “living on borrowed time” thanks to his refusal to listen to their views on Trident, austerity and greater devolution.

Nicola Sturgeon needs to learn her place. With all its new powers, the SNP has governed Scotland poorly; its policies on policing, education and tuition fees have failed. The economic success of Scotland – including high employment – is facilitated by the union.

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Jeremy Corbyn Capitulates On The EU, Betraying Left Wing Eurosceptics

Samuel Hooper9 Comments

Jeremy Corbyn - EU - European Union - Brexit - EU Referendum

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Is Jeremy Corbyn’s capitulation on Europe a sign of things to come?

We all know that Jeremy Corbyn is a eurosceptic at heart. He voted for Britain to leave the European Community in the 1975 referendum for precisely the same reason he remains sceptical of it now – Corbyn recognises that remote and anti-democratic institutions in Brussels and Strasbourg make it impossible for Britain to pursue her own sovereign policies.

Of course, in Corbyn’s case, the EU stands in the way of creating a true socialist state, a People’s State of Great Britain with levels of regulation, social legislation and economic protectionism that even Brussels rightly rejects. Corbyn’s euroscepticism is thus very different from a conservative or libertarian’s euroscepticism, but it still comes down to sovereignty at the end of the day – whether Britain should be free to pursue her own interests, or subordinate our national interest to the “greater good” of European unity and harmonisation.

Since the general election and the summer escalation of the Greek economic crisis, there has been an encouraging increase in left-wing euroscepticism, with prominent thinkers and voices finally starting to accept that the EU might not have the interests of all its individual member states at heart. It has been encouraging to watch these green shoots of euroscepticism grow on the Left, as more people came to realise that this anti-democratic anachronism from the 1950s is perhaps not the solution to the challenges of the twenty-first century.

But all of this welcome progress came to a screeching halt yesterday when Jeremy Corbyn announced an abject and humiliating climbdown in his eurosceptic stance, no doubt forced by self-entitled members of his restive shadow cabinet:

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