theresa’s house party
I once solemnly confessed to a pal that I just didn’t understand the rules behind Noel Edmond’s ‘Deal or No Deal’ only to be told that was the whole point, there were no rules. It was entirely a game of chance, where the contestants merely guessed what the red boxes contained and if they were lucky they went home with the money. So far, so little, but then he explained that the tension, as such, was created by the mysterious ‘banker’ (supposedly on Noel’s phone) who counter-offered them less money than they could potentially go home with and they had to decide whether to accept the offer (deal) or carry-on regardless (no deal). And this passed for mid-afternoon light-entertainment.
Today’s Brexit stand-off is now all or nothing and we face a fight to the bitter end between remain and leave: no-deal or no Brexit. The banker’s on the phone.
I’ve mentioned before that I feel no sympathy whatsoever for Mrs May and, at the risk of exposing a heart as cold and hard as granite itself, last week’s tearful goodbye performance did nothing to change this. Zilch. Her hollow, brittle ‘compromise’ platitude was mealy in the extreme as not once did we see any evidence of inclusion, flexibility or indeed, compromise, during her three years of ‘negotiation’. The only scintilla of thanks I shall give her is that towards the end of her reign she did half-heartedly attempt to smooth our departure from the bloc of our closest, and largest, trading partners and neighbours. Too little, way too late. However, to envisage any of her prospective successors in No 10 is to be confronted with the shocking realisation that we may miss her when she’s gone!
Notwithstanding the individual that eventually fills Theresa’s kitten heels, last week’s EU election result has further discredited the belief in any form of compromise and battle lines between two opposing, dug-in and dogmatic sides have been cemented. Compromise and negotiation wrt our withdrawal will not fly in our parliamentary system. Bad-boy Farage has succeeded in panicking whatever sense remained in the middle-ground of both parties, and the EU, similarly, have no reason to reopen the treaty they agreed with a departing UK. Mind, another rare consensus is apparently breaking out over La Manche in that all EU leaders universally regard Bumble Johnson as a loathsome charlatan, our very own Tiny Hands, who, as May’s first Foreign Secretary, did nothing in moving any cohesive argument forward in any way whatsoever.
Impossible though it may appear at times, opponents of the no-deal nightmare scenario must not despair and succumb to defeatism: the stakes for our future generations are too high. Remoaners must remember there is no mandate for the no-deal Brexit, and contrary to what the 17.4m leavers now surreptitiously claim, no-one anticipated it, no-one voted for it, and no-one approved it. If the next Tory Prime Minister, to be anointed, lest we forget, by only 330 MPs and approximately 125,000 tory party members (out of a population of 66m), chooses to exit that way, they will need fresh public consent. Let me stress that, the next Prime Minister, the person entirely responsible for how the government approach, negotiate and ultimately determine how Brexit pans-out for all of us, will be placed in this position of responsibility by less than 0.2% of the population. Go figure.
With the spectre of July 2016 looking to revisit us (lovely Leadsom launching a leadership bid, Bumble readying himself to meet royalty and strong-man Raab back on the push-up bench) we are now entering the endgame, a referendum offering two final, non-negotiable options: no deal or no Brexit. Simples…
