Bring back the old lord adonis | thearticle

Among Leave voters, Lord Adonis is well known as one of the most virulent of anti-Brexiteers. I don’t know how to do offence archeology, so I will just say, because I am sure he would agree,

that Adonis has often been rather rude about Leavers. He certainly hasn’t been moderate in his wider commentary on Brexit. Earlier this year, in The New European, he looked forward to the

death of Brexit. He said “… there is no such thing as a ‘good death’. Just death, which is always horrible and sometimes horrendous in its final stages. Brexit is no exception.” He imagined

Brexit’s funeral and said “The problem for Theresa isn’t only the handling of Brexit’s final days but also her obituaries and funeral. Usually these ease the pain at the end, on the

principle de mortuis nil nisi bonum (‘of the dead nothing but good’)… But of Brexit, who went so badly astray in her last two years in particular, almost no one has a good word to say.

Theresa, like Scrooge at Marley’s funeral, may be the sole mourner…” Robust and colourful writing. And rather prophetic in the mention of Scrooge, because Adonis has now seen the error of

his ways and has done an about-face worthy of Scrooge. Since being chosen to stand as a Labour MEP in the May elections, via a Facebook post published yesterday, Adonis says he is deeply

sorry about past mistakes. He is in favour of Brexit. Labour has always accepted the results of the referendum. Adonis himself is a socialist… The full text is here and is worth reading. The

aridity and general flatness of the style is so different to the usually boisterous Adonis. It reads to me like it has been written by someone else, or at least written rather unwillingly.

Can Adonis (or someone else) explain what is meant by the “dynamic alignment on rights and standards” that Labour propose between the UK and the EU post-Brexit? Does that mean that if we

change a law here in the UK all the other European countries will follow suit? I look forward to that. Does Adonis seriously describe himself a socialist? How does that fit with the

Academies movement which he helped to found, which takes failing state-managed schools out of state control? In fact, not that long ago, I met Adonis at a Free Schools conference where he

was a key-note speaker… How does that align with socialism? Like Scrooge, I wonder if Adonis has had a bit of help in seeing the errors of his past ways. Perhaps a friendly ghost? I am

currently reading Milan Kundera’s “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” set in Czechoslovakia after the Russian invasion of 1968. Before the invasion, one of the main characters, Tomas, had

written a newspaper article comparing the pre-invasion Communist leaders unfavourably to Oedipus. Confronted with the evils committed by communists, the leaders cried “but we did not know!”

When Oedipus discovered that he had unknowingly killed his father and married his mother, it did not matter that he did not know; he put out his own eyes. Tomas is asked to retract his

article. As he ponders his decision, he slowly realises that everyone wants him to do so. There were those who have already done such a thing themselves. They looked forward to him joining

them. “These people began to smile a curious smile at him, a smile he had never seen before: the sheepish smile of secret conspiratorial consent”. “Cowardice was slowly but surely becoming

the norm of behaviour and would soon cease being taken for what it actually was”. And then there were those who had been persecuted but who had refused to compromise – or were convinced they

would refuse to compromise, even though no-one had requested them to do so. This group “nurtured a secret love for the cowards, for without them their courage would soon erode into a

trivial monotonous grind admired by no-one”. We are not there yet in the UK. Lord Adonis’s vapid piece of writing, so unlike his usual robust style, has been treated with the mockery it

deserves. Remainers are furious, Leavers derisive. One of Milan Kundera’s characters says “Retractions are all forced, and it is the duty of every honest man to ignore them”. That feels like

where we are with Lord Adonis. So I look forward to hearing from the old Lord Adonis again. Proudly anti-Brexit, loud, rude, shooting from the hip, annoying and offensive, but always full

of passion. I miss him. I thought he would join the Tiggers. He could do so much good there. So here he is, in spirited style, on LBC Radio, saying that no Brexiteer should vote for Labour. 

I’m with the old Lord Adonis.