ABHI Brexit Update: Simply Doing Nothing
Another honours list and still no Knighthood. I am beginning to lose hope. I just wish it was only with my lack of gongdom.
“This extension is as flexible as I expected and a little bit shorter than I expected, but it is still enough to find the best possible solution,” the European council president, Donald Tusk, told a media conference on 10th April. He said of the extra six months of EU membership: “Please do not waste this time.”
Those words are echoing around my head constantly. How is this display of self-infatuation by the Conservative Party not wasting time? It is going to last as long as the Cricket World Cup. I just wish that the debates and promo broadcasts could be rained off in the same way as One Day Internationals.
At least they started culling some of the wacky racers this week. Esther McVey blew her chances on the increasingly significant LBC radio station. She went on a rant about foreign aid and how it had been wasted on an airport because the runway had been built the wrong way around, so the wind prevented planes from taking off. Her arguments began to unravel immediately. Host Nick Ferrari asked her where it was exactly. “On one of the continents, somewhere foreign,” was what she came up with. Oh dear. Listeners pointed out that aircraft had the option to take off in the opposite direction. Then Tory MP Sir Alan Duncan came out to say that the runway in question was St Helena, and he had been the Minister who built it, ahead of time and under budget. Yes, the wind was a significant problem on the island, but the airport was perfectly functional. There was another issue. St Helena is a UK overseas territory and maintaining the runway was part of our legal obligations to such places. It had nothing to do with foreign aid. McVey is supposed to be a journalist by training. I will wager that this is the last we hear of her.
Also out are Andrea Leadsom, who some thought had a good shout last time around, and Mark Harper. So the line-up is now exclusively middle aged men. Boris “won” the first round but, as I keep telling you, will not make the ballot. Rory Stewart is the only one saying that tax cuts are insane, so will likely be the next one out, and Michael Gove is a coke head apparently. I would never have thought he had it in him. It does explain that strange, rather manic expression he carries around with him.
Meanwhile the PM is working on her legacy. It is all about climate change and how she will be remembered as the Green Prime Minister. In much the same way as Tony Blair will be remembered for doubling the NHS budget and introducing the minimum wage. Her greenness will only ever be associated with her performance in those negotiations.
It hardly makes me Nostradamus, but I did say that Parliament would try and find a way to prevent a no-deal exit. It did not go entirely to plan this week, but the process has started. On Wednesday the Commons opposed a move for Parliament to take control of the Parliamentary timetable later in the month by 309 votes to 298.
If passed, it would have given opponents of a no-deal Brexit the chance to table legislation to thwart the UK leaving without any agreement. The result of the vote was greeted with cheers from the Tory benches, but Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn responded by shouting "you won't be cheering in September". Man with gob methinks.
Ten Tory MPs, mostly pro-Europeans, rebelled against the Government by backing Labour's motion. Eight Labour MPs, mostly Eurosceptics or MPs in constituencies which voted Leave at the referendum, defied the Whip and voted against it. The Government was also supported by the DUP, who have voted against Theresa May during previous Brexit votes.
Labour conceded that the Commons defeat was disappointing, but it still believed there was a majority against a no-deal and it remained "determined to win this fight". "There will be other procedural mechanisms we can use," shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer said. "We are already looking at what those other opportunities will be."
Backing the motion, Conservative ex-minister Sir Oliver Letwin said the case for ensuring Parliament had a "decisive vote" on the next PM's Brexit plan ahead of the 31 October deadline transcended party politics. Given that leaving without a deal remains the default legal position, he said it was "perfectly possible" for the next PM to usher in a no-deal exit by "simply doing nothing" at all.
Tory Remain supporter and former Attorney General Dominic Grieve said the motion was the "last sensible opportunity" to stop no-deal, and added that in the future, if necessary, he would support efforts to bring down a Conservative government in a vote of no confidence if it was the only way to block such an outcome.
Meanwhile, Piss-ups and Breweries, No 167. Anna Soubry. In a moment of weakness, I had thought that Soubry, another who posed as a journalist on (some of) your TV screens, might come out of the Brexit mess looking pretty good. She will not. I have already said that if you thought that Change UK was the answer, then you were likely to be disappointed, but it gets worse.
The Party, if you can call it that, has applied to the Electoral Commission to change its name to “The Independent Group for Change,” following a dispute with the petitions website Change.org. Change.org is threatening to sue MPs unless the party alters its name by 15th June. It is the latest in a series of calamities to befall Change UK.
The Party lost six of its 11 MPs earlier this month following a disappointing performance in the EU elections, when it failed to get a single MEP elected. The Party announced that Soubry had been elected new leader after its interim leader, Heidi Allen, was among those who quit.
Along with Soubry, the remaining Change UK MPs are Chris Leslie, Joan Ryan, Mike Gapes and Ann Coffey. Their future prospects are the same as those of Esther McVey, and their immediate focus is likely to be securing a place on Strictly or I’m a Celebrity.
This time next year Rodney, we will be millionaires.
