To understand the sensational outcome of the British election, one must ask a basic question. What happens when phony populism collides with the real thing?

Last year’s triumph for Brexit has often been paired with the rise of Donald Trump as evidence of a populist surge. But most of those joining in with the ecstasies of English nationalist self-assertion were imposters. Brexit is an elite project dressed up in rough attire. When its Oxbridge-educated champions coined the appealing slogan “Take back control,” they cleverly neglected to add that they really meant control by and for the elite. The problem is that, as the elections showed, too many voters thought the control should belong to themselves.

Theresa May is a classic phony Brexiter. She didn’t support it in last year’s referendum and there is no reason to think that, in private, she has ever changed her mind. But she saw that the path to power led toward the cliff edge, from which Britain will take its leap into an unknown future entirely outside the European Union. Her strategy was one of appeasement—of the nationalist zealots in her own party, of the voters who had backed the hard-right UK Independence Party (UKIP), and of the hysterically jingoistic Tory press, especially The Daily Mail.

The actual result of the referendum last year was narrow and ambiguous. Fifty-two percent of voters backed Brexit but we know that many of them did so because they were reassured by Boris Johnson’s promise that, when it came to Europe, Britain could “have its cake and eat it.” It could both leave the EU and continue to enjoy all the benefits of membership. Britons could still trade freely with the EU and would be free to live, work, and study in any EU country just as before. This is, of course, a childish fantasy, and it is unlikely that Johnson himself really believed a word of it. It was just part of the game, a smart line that might win a debate at the Oxford Union.

http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/06/10/britain-the-end-of-a-fantasy/

A Tory staffer was physically sick and Theresa May burst into tears as the Conservatives’ election night horror unfolded, it has emerged.

The humiliated Prime Minister cried before visiting the Queen having earlier welled up while addressing party activists, it was revealed.

One campaign insider told the Mirror it was like "musical statues" when the shocking exit poll was announced - with no one in the silent Tory HQ wanting to make first move.

When shellshocked Mrs May arrived at 4.30am she told incredulous staff "the party lives to fight another day", the source added.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/theresa-in-tears-tory-staffer-10604243

A neo-Nazi organisation involved in terrorism and banned by the UK Government is behind a new far right group in Scotland, we can reveal.

During an undercover investigation we secretly filmed the extreme far right group Scottish Dawn revealing its links to National Action.

A Scottish Dawn activist we filmed also revealed he’s a former member of UKIP and claimed that he got drunk with David Coburn, the party’s leader in Scotland.

Scotland’s newest far right group also has links to violent Polish neo-Nazis who are active in the UK.

https://theferret.scot/revealed-neo-nazi-terrorists-are-behind-scotlands-newest-far-right-group/

The Red Shed is a simple, one-storey wooden building in Wakefield that houses a meeting place and a bar. A sign on the front wall informs the world that it has been the meeting place of the Wakefield Labour Club since 1966: “50 Years a Socialist Shed”.

I happened across this unlikely outbuilding in the course of an effort to understand the politics of modern Britain as it hurtles toward the momentous decision it will make on 8 June. Theresa May presents herself as a strong leader who can go toe-to-toe with the big boys in Brussels; if her mandate is big enough, she will be free to seek the most extreme form of Brexit. If her victory is less convincing, she will have to moderate her stance. Either way, the actual details of the deal that will determine the future of this island are anyone’s guess.

And so I have come to this city of 76,000 in West Yorkshire to see how this country on the brink compares to my own. Hanging around in the affluent and cosmopolitan areas of London wouldn’t do. To come to grips with what has been going on here required a visit to the Britannia that is not cool; the regions where people largely exist outside the lustful gaze of the world.

The history of this part of England traces the history of industrialisation, its rise and its fall. With coal and steel and textiles, Yorkshire witnessed the beginning of the industrial revolution 200 years ago. With politics and organising, it is a place where the English working class came into its own. Then, with Margaret Thatcher and the big free-market beatdown of the 1980s, this was the first corner of the western world to see how it would all come crashing down. Last year’s referendum on the European Union was a hint of what comes next, and this time the hindmost were in the forefront. Like much of the rest of northern England, Wakefield voted leave, and its residents did so by 66%.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/07/from-rust-belt-to-mill-towns-a-tale-of-two-voter-revolts-thomas-frank-us-and-uk-elections

Some of Theresa May’s most senior ministers are working to moderate her plans for a hard Brexit, even suggesting the U.K. could remain in Europe’s single market and customs union, as the prime minister fights to stay in power.

After her election gamble backfired, May is now so weak and reliant on the support of political rivals inside and outside her Conservative Party that she’ll be unable to force through her vision of a clean break with the European Union, according to three senior government officials. While she left her cabinet largely intact on Sunday, she brought back a pro-Brexit challenger for the party leadership, Michael Gove, and kept as her foreign minister Boris Johnson, another leader of the Brexit campaign whose first task was to reject reports he planned to make a bid for May’s job.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond is said to be positioning himself as the chief advocate of a softer Brexit. He told May he would only agree to serve in her cabinet if she gave him more influence over the withdrawal negotiations, according to one person familiar with the matter who declined to be named citing confidential discussions.

A senior minister said the fact May intends to rely on Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party means she could be forced to keep Britain in the EU’s customs union, as well as the single market. Another minister said pro-European Tories would be emboldened to make the case for a softer deal with the EU that prioritizes the interests of businesses.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-06-11/may-s-ministers-plot-softer-brexit-to-keep-u-k-in-single-market

David Blevins ✔ @skydavidblevins

BREAK: The DUP says talks with the Tories are continuing. The party has NOT yet agreed to back the Tories on a confidence and supply basis.

David Blevins ✔ @skydavidblevins

BREAK: DUP has NOT yet reached any agreement with the Tories. Sky sources: Downing Street issued the wrong statement in error.

JOE.co.uk ✔ @JOE_co_uk

Absolutely no prisoners taken http://bit.ly/2t5R1Ai

WATCH: Kay Burley absolutely skewers Tory MP with mother of all questions about DUP

If Northern Ireland were a normal democracy, the election campaign would be dominated by a single question: how did the Democratic Unionist Party end up advancing the cause of a united Ireland through its support for Brexit? More specifically: what role did dark money play in that extraordinary decision? This story has all the makings of a John le Carré thriller but democracy on this island needs facts, not fiction.

To recap briefly: two days before the Brexit referendum last June, the Metro freesheet in London and other British cities came wrapped in a four-page glossy propaganda supplement urging readers to vote Leave. Bizarrely, it was paid for by the DUP, even though Metro does not circulate in Northern Ireland. At the time, the DUP refused to say what the ads cost or where the money came from.

We’ve since learned that the Metro wraparound cost a staggering £282,000 (€330,000) – surely the biggest single campaign expense in the history of Irish politics. For context, the DUP had spent about £90,000 (€106,000) on its entire campaign for the previous month’s assembly elections. But this was not all: the DUP eventually admitted that this spending came from a much larger donation of £425,622 (€530,000) from a mysterious organisation, the Constitutional Research Council.

Mystery

The mystery is not why someone seeking to influence the Brexit vote would want to do so through the DUP. Disgracefully, Northern Ireland is exempt from the UK’s requirements for the sources of large donations to be declared. The mystery, rather, is who were the ultimate sources of this money and why was it so important to keep their identities secret.

http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/what-connects-brexit-the-dup-dark-money-and-a-saudi-prince-1.3083586

If Northern Ireland were a normal democracy, the election campaign would be dominated by a single question: how did the Democratic Unionist Party end up advancing the cause of a united Ireland through its support for Brexit? More specifically: what role did dark money play in that extraordinary decision? This story has all the makings of a John le Carré thriller but democracy on this island needs facts, not fiction.

To recap briefly: two days before the Brexit referendum last June, the Metro freesheet in London and other British cities came wrapped in a four-page glossy propaganda supplement urging readers to vote Leave. Bizarrely, it was paid for by the DUP, even though Metro does not circulate in Northern Ireland. At the time, the DUP refused to say what the ads cost or where the money came from.

We’ve since learned that the Metro wraparound cost a staggering £282,000 (€330,000) – surely the biggest single campaign expense in the history of Irish politics. For context, the DUP had spent about £90,000 (€106,000) on its entire campaign for the previous month’s assembly elections. But this was not all: the DUP eventually admitted that this spending came from a much larger donation of £425,622 (€530,000) from a mysterious organisation, the Constitutional Research Council.

Mystery

The mystery is not why someone seeking to influence the Brexit vote would want to do so through the DUP. Disgracefully, Northern Ireland is exempt from the UK’s requirements for the sources of large donations to be declared. The mystery, rather, is who were the ultimate sources of this money and why was it so important to keep their identities secret.

http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/what-connects-brexit-the-dup-dark-money-and-a-saudi-prince-1.3083586