Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, the career bureaucrat who drafted Article 50, is being pushed hard by the mainstream media after repeating old claims that Brexit can be reversed.
Outlets such as George Osborne’s Evening Standard and commentators like BBC and LBC presenter James O’Brien have been hailing the 75-year-old’s “intervention” in a seemingly co-ordinated push — although it is, in fact, old news, as he made exactly the same claims in March and July.
O’Brien, in particular, keen to stress His Lordship’s supposedly unimpeachable expert status and great intellect after interviewing him — although he neglected to mention that the Remain campaigner has also argued that Britain needs immigration because “native Brits are so bloody stupid”.
“In my view, immigration is the thing that keeps this country running,” he pronounced in November 2016.
“We native Brits are so bloody stupid that we need an injection of intelligent people, young people from outside who come in and wake us up from time to time.”
Following the outburst, commentator Quentin Letts described Lord Kerr as “the authentic, drawling voice of the European elite”, and “smoulderingly angry about the Brexit vote”.
Letts noted: “For decades he had been a leading proponent of the European superstate.
“He was ambassador to the EU and helped to write the EU constitution (including Article 50, its exit route). He is now having to watch the whole caboodle run smack into a wall.
“The poor fellow’s cosy little world has imploded.”
Kerr helped to draft the failed European Constitution as Secretary-General of the Convention on the Future of Europe, or European Convention, under the direction of French ex-president and euro-federalist Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, which recommended the European Union be officially renamed as ‘The United States of Europe’.
The European Constitution was sunk by referendums rejecting it in France and the Netherlands, but quickly repackaged the Lisbon Treaty.
Only the Republic of Ireland had a referendum on the rebranded constitution and they also rejected it, but were simply forced to vote again.
Legal text written by Lord Kerr for the constitution was “pasted” into the Lisbon Treaty, although Lord Kerr has conceded it was not designed with countries like the United Kingdom in mind — as he believed only “a dictatorial regime” could possibly consider leaving.