WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2019 Volume 6, Number 50 EIR Daily Alert Service P.O. Box 17390, Washington, DC 20041-0390

• Acting on LaRouche Principle Urgent: Truth in Science, Truth in Statecraft
• Tremonti Expects Wide Impact of Italy-China MOU, Credits LaRouche as New Silk Road Visionary
• Wang Yi Optimistic that India and Pakistan Can Avoid Controntation
• Philippine President Duterte’s Massive Support Continues To Increase
• Green Hysteria School Boycott Sports Religious Gloss; Actions Planned in 50-Plus Nations
• Retired Admiral Campaigns Against U.S. Military Capitulation to Human-Hating ‘Climate’ Hoax
• Rogozin, Bridenstine Discuss Soyuz Launch To Take Crew to ISS
• China-India Joint Committee To Meet on Space Cooperation
• Is DOJ’s Bruce Ohr the Designated Fall Guy in Obama’s 2016 Policing Scheme?
• Sputnik Interview With Binne on NSA Mega-Data Surveillance
• Chinese and U.S. Trade Negotiators Talk by Phone
• U.S. Ambassador Threatens Germany Not To Use Huawei
• Memo by Guaido’s NED Trainers Identified Nationwide Blackout as Key in Regime Change
  
• Philippine Defense Secretary Wary of ‘Venezuela’ Treatment
• Media Sources Say Trump Offered North Korea Full Removal of Sanctions for Full Denuclearization
• U.S. Business Demands Bipartisan Action on Infrastructure
• Theresa May’s Brexit Deal Crushed for Second Time in Parliament

EDITORIAL

Acting on LaRouche Principle Urgent: Truth in Science, Truth in Statecraft

March 12 (EIRNS)—On Monday, March 11, a LaRouchePAC “LPAC Daily” email went out widely, titled, “President Trump’s Committee on Climate Security: A Much-Needed, Overdue Return to Science.” Along with this salvo, the LaRouche movement internationally is promoting the needed guidance on how to return America to development economics in the spirit of the New Silk Road, while exposing the evil geopolitical assaults against the principles of truth in science and statecraft.

Today, President Donald Trump himself spoke out explicitly to denounce “fake science” along with “fake news.” But meanwhile, his top administration representatives—Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and National Security Advisor John Bolton—continue invective against Russia over Venezuela, and against China over Italy’s interest in the Belt and Road.

President Trump’s proposed Committee on Climate Security has the potential to break through the lies on climate change in particular, and the dangerous perversion of the meaning of “science” more generally. This will clear the heads of citizens to think through and competently judge affairs of state in the common interests of all concerned, and not fall for hoaxes of any kind. Note that as of this morning, there were 55,000 views of LaRouche PAC’s March 4 posting, “Mr. President: Listen to Bill Binney. Russiagate Is a Worse Hoax Than You Thought.”

In support of the possibility for a Presidential Committee on Climate Security, a network of climate change realists is taking up the challenge to back Trump’s initiative.

The March 7 article by scientist Paul Driessen republished on the LaRouchePAC website, has been covered and reposted on numerous other sites. And Patrick Moore, the ex-Greenpeace co-founder quoted in Jason Ross’s LaRouchePAC article on the “Overdue Return to Science,” exposing the Green New Deal as a murder policy, appeared on Fox News Tucker Carlson show last night. Moore said that the Green New Deal would mean the “end of civilization” (“Former Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore: The Green New Deal Would Lead To the ‘End of Civilization’ ”).

President Trump himself tweeted this morning about Moore’s appearance. “Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace: The whole climate crisis is not only Fake News, it’s Fake Science. There is no climate crisis, there’s weather and climate all around the world, and in fact carbon dioxide is the main building block of all life. @foxandfriends Wow!”

And Moore has responded in turn with an endorsement of Dr. CO2 Coalition of William Happer, who is recommended to head the climate security committee: “Thanks President Trump. I am in DC for a meeting of the CO2 Coalition founded by William Happer, whom I admire greatly. CO2 is entirely beneficial. The EPA finding that CO2 is pollution must be reversed.”

It appears that Trump is not giving in on joining the green suicide. This is a position he has maintained since taking office, and notably expressed in his withdrawal of the United States from the Paris COP21 climate agreement. But the fight is not over! Urge others to read Ross’s article and to sign up to fight back against the Green suicide pact.

NEW WORLD ECONOMIC ORDER

Tremonti Expects Wide Impact of Italy-China MOU, Credits LaRouche as New Silk Road Visionary

March 12 (EIRNS)—Giulio Tremonti, former Italian Economics Minister, this week addressed the significant impact of the Memorandum of Understanding expected to be signed between Italy and China during President Xi Jinping’s visit on March 22, and cited Lyndon LaRouche as the “visionary” for the New Silk Road. Tremonti’s recent interview with Corriere della Sera was covered in today’s Libero Quotidiano.

The article, as translated by EIR, begins: “If Italy joins the Silk Road—the Memorandum of Understanding that our government should be signing in a couple of weeks on the occasion of Xi Jinping’s visit to Rome—we will become China’s gateway to Europe.”  And “the Chinese will ask us to OK the TAV,” referring to the Trans-European Network high-speed train between Turin and Lyon), “according to former Economic Minister Giulio Tremonti in an interview with Corriere della Sera.”

Tremonti explains that the Silk Road “is a project that dates back to the mid-’90s by the American visionary Lyndon LaRouche, who saw it as the salvation of humanity. Since then, the Chinese plans have been articulated along various lines. Beijing, apart from its financial infrastructure, is developing along the Eurasian, Arctic and Southern routes. Italy is part of the last, which means Sicily, Trieste, Genoa.”

Wang Yi Optimistic that India and Pakistan Can Avoid Confrontation

March 12 (EIRNS)—Speaking at a March 8 press conference on the sidelines of the second session of the 13th National People’s Congress, Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi expressed optimism that China had succeeded in helping to de-escalate the recent tensions between Pakistan and India. “China played a vital role in defusing the conflict between the two countries. Islamabad and New Delhi should meet each other to de-escalate the crisis,” Wang was quoted by various media today: “China hopes Pakistan and India will replace confrontation with dialogue, settle a disagreement by goodwill and create a better future through cooperation. China also hopes Pakistan and India will transform the crisis into opportunity and meet each other halfway. We advise both parties to quickly turn this page and seek a fundamental long-term improvement in their relations.”

On China-India relations, Wang stressed that “Chinese dragons and Indian elephants won’t clash. Instead, they will dance with each other.”

Wang’s March 8 statement follows the visit by China’s Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou to Islamabad on March 6.

Philippine President Duterte’s Massive Support Continues To Increase

March 12 (EIRNS)—Despite extensive efforts from the “Project Democracy” regime-change proponents and human rights mafia in the West to paint Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte as an “authoritarian dictator” for establishing friendly relations with Russia and China, and as a human rights criminal for his war on drugs, the generally liberal polling company in the Philippines, the Social Weather Station, released new figures today showing that that President’s support from the adult population has actually increased by 11 points since September, to a whopping 76%, with only 9% opposing him.

SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE

Green Hysteria School Boycott Sports Religious Gloss; Actions Planned in 50-Plus Nations

March 12 (EIRNS)—This coming Friday, March 15, the international day for youth to boycott school in the name of stopping global heat death, is set up for actions in 50 to 72 nations, depending on which sponsoring group does the estimate. There is also a dismal religious gloss to the hysteria in many places.

In Washington, D.C., for example, an Irish Catholic operative, Lorna Gold, is to release her new book on March 15, titled, Climate Generation: Awakening to Our Children’s Future at an event to “Divest” from fossil fuels. This is to be a soft launch, leading up to the book’s official launch on June 6 in Boston, heralded by green guru Bill McKibben.

Gold, on the board of the Global Catholic Climate Movement, backs climate strikes as “an opportunity for children … who don’t have a vote yet to show active citizenship.” Her remarks are quoted by theNational Catholic Reporter, which also covers Gold’s praise for the Teachers Union of Ireland, which passed a support resolution for teachers who “facilitate” their pupils’ engagement in the climate strike.

Gold appeals to mothers to act against alleged ecological destruction, calling it “the most natural part of my Catholic faith.” She has joined students demonstrating on Fridays outside the Dail Eireann (lower house of parliament). She cites her actions as in furtherance of what Pope Francis calls an “integral ecology.” Gold works for the Irish Bishops’ development agency Trocaire, where she is “Coordinator of the Laudato Sí Project.”

Such evil manipulation of children to support a Satanic attack on science is, as Patrick Moore recently argued, a case of criminal child abuse.

Retired Admiral Campaigns against U.S. Military Capitulation to Human-Hating ‘Climate’ Hoax

March 12 (EIRNS)—Former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Thomas Hayward (ret.) has rejected the line from many military officers included in the Quadrennial Defense Review since 2010, that alleged anthropomorphic climate change is a threat to national security, former NASA scientist Larry Bell reported on March 4. Bell wrote in Newsmax (“Indefensible Fiction: Climate Change as Security Threat”) that he had been in contact with Hayward since 2012. “Admiral Hayward was—and is—particularly critical of the elite Central Naval Analysis Military Advisory Board’s predisposition to accept [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] IPCC findings without question, then to nonsensically conclude that climate change constituted a ‘threat multiplier’ posing national security concerns.”

Bell quoted Hayward: “Despite the number of scientific organizations within DOD and the military services, none has challenged the IPCC’s flawed science of climate change, when in fact, available science literature is replete with peer-reviewed research contradicting their assertion that man is primarily responsible.”

Admiral Hayward told the Heartland Institute’s America First Energy Conference in November 2017 that he had been fighting the Defense Department “for a good 10 years” on its decision to declare climate change a national security “threat multiplier” and priority, based on the view of people “who believe humans are the problem.” Instead of building up the combat readiness of the military, he cited the U.S. Navy’s spending, under President Obama’s direction, of $58 billion to create a “Great Green fleet” of all ships, from aircraft carriers down, 50% fueled by biofuels!

Rogozin, Bridenstine Discuss Soyuz Launch To Take Crew to ISS

March 12 (EIRNS)—Dmitry Rogozin, Director of Russia’s Roscosmos space corporation and NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine discussed the March 14 launch of the Soyuz MS12 rocket from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station. Rogozin said, “Today I had a telephone conversation with Jim Bridenstine. We discussed the upcoming launch from Baikonur and future bilateral contacts. The NASA administrator shared his delight over the approval of their funding request for the development of the Moon program,” Rogozin wrote on his official Twitter account, reported TASS.

The rocket will deliver the Soyuz spacecraft with cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin and astronauts Nick Hague and Christina Koch to the ISS. Ovchinin and Hague were scheduled to fly to the ISS on Oct. 11, 2018, but the flight was aborted two minutes after lift-off due to the failure of the Soyuz-FG rocket.

China-India Joint Committee To Meet on Space Cooperation

March 12 (EIRNS)—China and India have an opportunity coming up to make a breakthrough in the strategic area of space cooperation, when the second meeting of the Sino-India Joint Committee on Space Cooperation convenes this year. The Committee was established in 2015, and at the first meeting in Beijing, an outline for cooperation was signed. Although it included 19 potential joint projects, they are all still at only the “dialogue” stage.

Also in 2015, then-China National Space Administration head Xu Dazhe wrote a letter to the heads of all the world’s space agencies, inviting them to participate in the Chang’e-4 lunar mission. TheHindustan Times reports that China received applications from India for potential payloads for the mission, but “due to the different nature of the missions of the two sides, the Indian payload on Chang’e-4 could not be carried through [after] the evaluation.” Although CNSA confirmed the story, it said nothing further.

As the Hindustan Times observes: “It could have been a breakthrough stride for Sino-India cooperation in space.”

Both nations are planning future lunar missions, presenting new opportunities for these two space powers to work together.

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

Is DOJ’s Bruce Ohr the Designated Fall Guy in Obama’s 2016 Policing Scheme?

March 12 (EIRNS)—Larry Johnson, the former CIA analyst and State Department counter-terrorism expert, has once again challenged the powers-that-be in an article, “Bruce Ohr, Liar or Moron?” published yesterday on Pat Lang’s “Sic Semper Tyrannis” blog.

It concerns the 268-page transcript of the testimony of former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr before the Joint House Judiciary Committee and House Oversight Committee that took place on Aug. 28, 2018, and was released in full by Georgia Rep. Doug Collins on March 8, after the Justice Department stalled approving its release.

After reviewing the improbable answers Ohr provided on how he came to be the conduit for British spy Christopher Steele to the FBI and the upper echelons of the Department of Justice, it appears the answer to Johnson’s question is that Ohr was engaged in the type of lying Justice Department lawyers are skilled at—pretending to be just incredibly dumb and confused—in essence, a human dropbox for inexplicable facts, when reality screams that something quite different is taking place. Johnson concludes that the reason Steele approached Ohr was to provide some insulation to the FBI, which was engaged in an act of sedition. The FBI was interfering in the 2016 election and working to destroy Donald Trump. As EIR has repeatedly demonstrated, however, Ohr was not just insulating the FBI. He was insulating illegal actions involving the CIA, the Obama White House, and the State Department, all serving a British strategic project to swing the election to Hillary Clinton.

As Johnson points out, two of the three biggest items in Ohr’s testimony were known as the result of leaks: that MI6’s Christopher Steele was a longstanding paid FBI informant, and that Ohr repeatedly told DOJ officials that Christopher Steele was biased and would do anything to prevent Trump’s election. The FBI and DOJ officials involved in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) application to surveil Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page used the Steele dossier for the warrant, never telling the FISA Court judges that they knew that Steele had confessed passionate bias to Ohr, and was being paid by the Clinton Campaign. New, however, is Ohr’s documented meeting with Fusion GPS’s Glenn Simpson in August 2016. Simpson previously swore stridently under oath that he never met with Ohr until after the 2016 election. This puts Simpson, Steele’s nominal American employer, in legal jeopardy.

Ohr’s explanations of his repeated meetings with Steele, starting in July 2016 in Washington, D.C. make no sense; something Committee Republicans constantly pounded Ohr about in the deposition session.  Johnson notes that Ohr knows that Steele already has an FBI handler. Why does Steele pick a senior career Justice Department official to pass his dossier fragments to the FBI, instead of going to his FBI handler directly? Johnson also points out that Steele’s long-term FBI employment violates longstanding Five Eyes policy about cross-employment of spies.

Meanwhile, Ohr’s wife, Nellie, goes to work for Glenn Simpson on the Clinton dossier project. She also hands her husband a thumb drive to give to the FBI. Bruce Ohr meets with fired FBI Deputy Director Andy McCabe’s attorney, Lisa Page (who used to work for Ohr) and McCabe in July, setting up a new official channel between Steele and the FBI, when one already existed. Ohr also tells senior DOJ attorneys Andrew Weissmann, Bruce Swartz, and Zainab Ahmad about his Christopher Steele project, but does not tell his superior, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, or any other DOJ political appointee about it, because that might be construed as political! This bizarre testimony is set against John Brennan’s acknowledged role in Russiagate, and the acknowledged DOJ and CIA briefings to the Obama White House about the illicit British operation against Trump conducted by Steele.

The best Ohr offers (other than repeated failures of memory or absolute blindness to the implications of what he was involved in) is to state that Steele, Ohr, and Simpson have had a longstanding relationship dating back to 2007, and mutual interest in Russian organized crime.  That relationship, however, cannot explain the complete violation of protocol outlined in Ohr’s deposition: First, being the conduit for giving Steele’s product to the FBI beginning in July 2017, despite the fact that Steele has an FBI handler, Michael Gaeta, and, possibly, another New York based-agent. When the FBI fires Steele, in early October 2016 for his numerous conversations with the media, Ohr once again becomes the backdoor conduit, receiving Steele’s bogus Russiagate claims. At this time, Ohr meets, as a witness, with FBI Agent Joe Pientka, who records the Steele/Ohr meetings and transmissions in FBI 302s.  These 302s continue from October 2016, until May 2017.  However, Ohr continued the Steele/Ohr/Pientka backdoor transmission meetings and discussions until November 2017.  No 302s of these May-November activities were provided to Congress.  Ohr also testified that Kathleen Kavalec, the assistant to Victoria Nuland at the State Department, was also receiving Steele’s missives. Ohr testified that he has never been contacted by John Huber, the prosecutor appointed by then Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate all of this. He has yet to be interviewed by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, although Horowitz has notified Ohr that he intends to interview him.

Sputnik Interview with Binney on NSA Mega-Data Surveillance

March 12 (EIRNS)—Sputnik published an interview today with William Binney, former technical director of the National Security Agency, who told Sputnik that the NSA had ended its mega-data surveillance program on all U.S. phone calls not out of concerns for privacy, but in order to cut costs.  “They already get everything they want via the Upstream and other bulk collection programs,” Binney said. The ending of the program was reported by the New York Timeslast week, citing senior Republican Congressional aide Luke Murry, who serves as national security adviser to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

However, Binney said that in “no way” was the cutting of the program a real concession respecting privacy concerns. “They can save money by getting rid of the FISA-directed unconstitutional bulk transfer of metadata to NSA at the request of the FBI,” he argued.

Chinese and U.S. Trade Negotiators Talk by Phone

March 12 (EIRNS)—Chinese Vice Premier Liu He spoke by phone with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin today, Sputnik reported. It said, “The parties have discussed in detail the key issues [relating] to the text [of the trade agreement] and defined the agenda for the further work,” according to a Chinese Commerce Ministry statement, which specified that the phone call was initiated by Washington.

U.S. Ambassador Threatens Germany Not To Use Huawei

March 12 (EIRNS)—The unfortunate U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, displayed the neo-con flight forward against U.S.-China relations March 8, in a letter he sent to the German Economics Ministry threatening that the United States will curtail intelligence sharing with Germany, should Berlin allow Huawei or any other Chinese equipment vendor to participate in its upcoming 5G project.

That’s according to the Wall Street Journal, which reported today that it had been given access to the letter, and had consulted with U.S. officials in Washington about the matter. Officials “declined to say whether other countries have received or would receive similar warnings,” the Journal wrote—although it is hard to imagine that Germany is being singled out.

“The Americans will assume that everything we share with Germany will end up with the Chinese,” if the Chinese are in on the project, a “senior State Department official” told the Journal. U.S. intelligence would not be completely cut off, but it would not be “at that same level and not with the same degree of transparency as before,” as the daily put it.

National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis claimed to the Journal that “the 5G networks our allies buy won’t be the networks that they eventually operate, as the software could be changed on a moment-to-moment basis by the manufacturer.”

Germany has not capitulated to the pressure, at least not yet. “A spokesman for the German Economics Ministry said the concerns outlined in the letter weren’t new and that the government had seen no proof of any activity by any vendor that would compromise the national security of the country or its allies. A German security official who recently met his counterparts at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said the message he had received from Washington was more nuanced than Mr. Grenell’s letter and that he wasn’t presented with any evidence against Huawei. The official also noted that Huawei has taken legal action against the U.S. and said any German policy would need to be evidence-based and on firm legal footing,” the Journalreported.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

Memo by Guaidó’s NED Trainers Identified Nationwide Blackout as Key in Regime Change

March 12 (EIRNS)—Journalist Max Blumenthal called attention yesterday to a memo written in 2010 by Srdja Popovic of the Belgium-based Center for Applied Non-Violent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), extolling the value of a potential nationwide electricity blackout in Venezuela as a “watershed” event which could bring down then-President Hugo Chávez.

Popovic wrote in the memo, found in a WikiLeaks file, that “a key to Chávez’s current weakness is the decline in the electricity sector. There is the grave possibility that some 70% of the country’s electricity grid could go dark as soon as April 2010…. This could be the watershed event…. This would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate. At that point in time, an opposition group would be best served to take advantage of the situation and spin it against Chávez and towards their needs.” For victory, Popovic continued, an alliance is needed with sections of the military.

That memo reads like a prescription for what is occurring today in Venezuela. Juan Guaidó, whom London and Washington neo-cons claim is the “president” of Venezuela, was trained by CANVAS, which, in turn, is financed by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and applies Gene Sharp’s “color revolution” tactics, as Blumenthal exposed in his Jan. 29, 2019 article also published in The Grayzone, a news site which Blumenthal founded and edits.

“Whether or not the blackout is the result of external sabotage, it represents the ‘watershed event’ that CANVAS has prepared its Venezuelan cadres for,” Blumenthal wrote.

Philippine Defense Secretary Wary of ‘Venezuela’ Treatment

March 12 (EIRNS)—In an interview to be published in EIR’s March 15 issue, Philippine Secretary of National Defense Delfin Lorenzana was asked if President Rodrigo Duterte, who is much criticized in the West as an “authoritarian” and human rights violator, was concerned that a “regime-change” operation against him, as against Maduro in Venezuela, were a possibility. “Yes, we are afraid of that,” Secretary Lorenzana replied. “We have been cautioned by our friends that the neo-cons might try to take out the President. Even President Duterte talked about that several times in his public speeches. They are watching what our President does, that if he does things that align with their interests, as the neo-cons see it, or if President Duterte gets closer with the Chinese, Russia and India. But China said they don’t want a military alliance with anybody. They want to have trade relations with everybody. They want to help people to improve themselves so that we can trade. I think that is what the Chinese are saying.”

Secretary Lorenzana also said that he believed that “the United States had a big role in the overthrow of [President Ferdinand] Marcos,” the nationalist President of the Philippines who was overthrown through a “color revolution” run from Washington in 1986, placing a U.S. puppet, Cory Aquino, in power.

Media Sources Say Trump Offered North Korea Full Removal of Sanctions for Full Denuclearization

March 12 (EIRNS)—Both John Bolton and Stephen Biegun said this week that the Trump Administration will insist on a total agreement with North Korea, not a step-by-step approach. Bolton, speaking on the Sunday talking heads’ shows March 10, also proclaimed that chemical and biological weapons must also be given up as part of the package. Biegun, speaking at the Carnegie Institute yesterday, said there was “complete unity” in the administration on insisting on a total package.

The Washington Post reported March 11 that sources who attended the Hanoi Summit confirmed that President Trump had offered “full sanctions relief for full denuclearization.”

There is not yet a date for the next round of negotiations. The media are full of stories that North Korea is preparing a missile test, which is purely speculative, based only on some minor construction at a former missile site.

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

U.S. Business Demands Bipartisan Action on Infrastructure

March 12 (EIRNS)—The Presidents of the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, the National Asphalt Pavement Association, and the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association, Dennis Slater, Audrey Copeland and Michael W. Johnson, co-authored an op-ed in The Hillarguing that “Infrastructure Investment Pays for Itself,” and must be made now. They focus on transportation infrastructure, which, as they point out, “is essential to the free movement of people and goods,” writing:

“Poll after poll has shown that Americans want their federal government to improve their roads, highways and bridges….

“We’re urging Congress to provide a bipartisan solution before May that addresses funding in a way that a majority of members and their constituents can support. We need every member of Congress to leverage every tool at their disposal to pay for badly needed infrastructure maintenance, repair and modernization.

“The Trump Administration and Democrats and Republicans in the new Congress have all pointed to a willingness to work together on a comprehensive infrastructure package. It’s time to turn that willingness into action. There are no more excuses….”

OTHER

Theresa May’s Brexit Deal Crushed for Second Time in Parliament

March 12 (EIRNS)—Prime Minister Theresa May’s frantic effort to coerce the Parliament into accepting her fake Brexit deal with the EU went down to massive defeat for a second time in the Parliament today, 391-242, losing by 149 votes. Her first effort was defeated by 230 votes. With the deadline for leaving the EU on March 29, she had stalled to the last minute hoping to force approval in order to avoid chaos and panic. Chaos and panic, however, was the result.

May nonetheless suggested after the vote that there should be yet a third vote on her deal. “The deal we negotiated is the best and indeed the only deal available,” May stated. “Leaving without a deal remains the default in U.K. and EU law.”

May’s deal would essentially keep the U.K. in the Customs Union, under EU law, indefinitely, and forbid the U.K. from leaving it without EU approval. Minor tweaks, worked out Monday night, March 11, between May and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker were window dressing, as even the Tory legal officials acknowledged. May had lost her voice in the late-night talks, and was barely able to speak in Parliament today, adding to the normal Commons pandemonium.

The head of the Liberal Democrats asked after May’s post-vote statement whether there was ever a time, “other than the U.S. War for Independence,” where a prime minister lost a vote twice and still tried to put it forward for a third time!

The next steps: The Parliament will vote March 13 on a motion to forbid a “no deal” Brexit, which is expected to pass easily; then on March 14 to vote for an extension of the March 29 deadline for leaving the EU, probably to June. That would have to get the EU’s approval. One question then to consider—would the U.K. be required to run candidates in the European Parliament elections being held in May?

What will happen? No one knows. There is pressure for various measures: May could step down, although it is generally thought that no other Tories would be mad enough to take her position at this point (the Tories, under their rules, cannot call a no-confidence vote within the party, since they called one which lost earlier, and must thus wait some specified time for another); there could be a vote of no confidence in the Parliament, in which case there would be a general election within a short period of time; or, there could be a new referendum, which could go either way.

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, in his post-vote statement, declared May’s deal utterly dead, and said he would again put forward the Labour proposal, which is to negotiate a separate trade agreement with the EU, rather than staying in the EU Customs Union, so that the border between the Republic of Ireland, an EU member, and Northern Ireland could remain open. Corbyn also wants to negotiate for the U.K. to have some sort of access to the common market. He also insisted that it was time for a British general election.

The impact on the time bomb already set to explode within the City of London financial system is yet to be seen, but this chaos could obviously accelerate the inevitable explosion.

Reach us at eirdailyalert@larouchepub.com or call 1-571-293-0935