Theresa May has lost her latest ‘meaningful vote’ on Brexit – as of course, we all knew she would.
Nobody liked her Withdrawal Agreement when parliament voted it down in January – humiliatingly rejecting it by a 230 vote margin.
Nobody liked her Withdrawal Agreement this time either – not least because it was the same Brexit In Name Only (BRINO) fudge as before, only with added legalese pretending that there was some kind of built-in exit clause.
Brexiteer Boris Johnson once famously described Theresa May’s first Withdrawal Agreement as a “polished turd”
The new one, you could say, was the same turd rolled in glitter.
Given that everyone, but everyone, knew exactly what was lurking beneath that twinkling exterior, it’s a wonder that it yet managed to garner as many 242 votes (40 more than last time).
Why did they do so?
Fear, mainly. They had been persuaded by the argument that Theresa May’s BRINO deal was the closest to Brexit they were ever going to get and that if they rejected it, it’s only going to suffer death by a thousand cuts administered by Remain-dominated parliament.
It is entirely possible that in this analysis, champions of Theresa May’s glitter-dipped turd are correct.
These Champions of the Shimmery Turd include such luminaries as my old friend Environment Secretary and former leading Brexiteer Michael Gove and my Spectator colleague, political editor James Forsyth. They know far more about politics and parliamentary procedure than I’ll ever know, so I’m really not questioning either their expertise or their intellectual integrity.
I’m quite sure that they genuinely believe that the Shimmery Turd really was the nation’s only hope of getting anything close to the Brexit we voted for on June 23 2016 – and that now it has been flushed away we’ll soon come to miss its merry stench.
But Britain, thank God, is not primarily made up of people who are experts in politics and parliamentary procedure and the “art of the possible.”
Rather, mainly, it is made up of people like you and me. People who on the whole think that Westminster is a cesspit of liars, chancers, trimmers, troughers, time servers, spivs, compromisers and charlatans. And cowards: most of all, cowards.
People who on being told that they can’t be given the Brexit they voted for in June 2016 because “reasons” don’t roll over and go: “Ah well. If the experts say we can’t have Brexit, we can’t have Brexit.” People who instead go: “Sod that for a game of soldiers. I want what I voted for and I’m not going away till I get it.”
This is why I found myself so heartily applauding one of the reader comments below one of Forsyth’s Spectator blogs yesterday headlined “There may be a Brexit breakthrough on the backstop.”
(This breakthrough never happened by the way. The European Union, led by the intransigent and frankly evil Martin Selmayr, is determined to give us less than nada)
Oh do shut up, Forsyth, This is pathetic. If the EU were anything but a bunch of crooks, we wouldn’t need this obscure, secondary legal “perhaps” argument.
Your sort have produced this, you myopic little turd. A great nation reduced to arguing over whether some back-of-the-fag-packet bullshit can perhaps (given a load of maybes) guarantee our ancient liberties?
The WA is appalling – worse than the terms foisted on Germany, for waging genocide. Only traitorous scum could even consider signing it. If we need legal interpretations that are “defensible” to ensure our freedoms – what a “shameful conquest” we (or rather you) have made of us.
It’s not the rudeness to Forsyth I’m applauding. (He’s a very amiable chap). Just the forthright expression of what so many of us feel.
We look at Westminster – and most of the attached media class – aghast at how such a bunch of cowardly sell-outs can be representing us.
Given the choice, surveys show, more British would go for a No Deal Brexit than any other option.
The EU’s contemptuous treatment of us has only hardened our resolve.
So if all the Remainer MPs in parliament are feeling pleased with themselves about the prospects tomorrow of voting No Deal Brexit out of contention, they are living in a fool’s paradise.
No good can come of it when parliament is so badly out of tune with the electorate it is supposed to serve.
Just you wait and see…
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