Yahoo News Can you negotiate with people who are certifiable? Ask the EU
Cometh the hour, cometh the man. And who better to deputise for the prime minister during the latest debate on why the government still doesn’t have a clue about what it’s doing about Brexit than the Brexit secretary himself? Stephen Barclay’s the one member of the cabinet whose job description is to know nothing whatsoever about Brexit. A man put on the payroll for the sole purpose of being kept out of the loop.
In a parallel, fairer, world, Barclay would be an anonymous financial adviser, whose only success was to have been runner-up in a lifetime achievement award hosted by the north-east Cambridgeshire regional chamber of commerce for being the only person dim enough to have mis-sold himself his own pension.
Instead he finds himself charged with misleading the country over the government’s Brexit policy. A job he does with ease, as he doesn’t even know what it is he doesn’t know.
Barclay opened the debate by mumbling that it was still government policy not to have a policy. And he was happy to confirm that, as the prime minister had been taken hostage by the European Research Group, the natural consequence of accepting the impossible demands of the Brady amendment calling for the renegotiation of the withdrawal agreement, was that the UK would almost certainly be leaving the EU on 29 March with no deal.
Several Tory Brexiters could scarcely believe their luck. They had been expecting far more of a fight than this and hurriedly sought reassurances that their preferred “no deal” was still on the table.
Owen Paterson wanted confirmation that the Malthouse compromise really was as pointless as his appointment to the Alternative Arrangements Working Group had indicated. Barclay was delighted to confirm this. He had spoken at length to Jean-Michel Jarre and they had agreed that squads of highly trained, armed, badgers were the key to solving the Northern Ireland backstop.
Yvette Cooper asked whether Barclay was still 100% committed to a no deal even if it meant people losing their jobs or dying. “Absolutely,” the Brexit secretary beamed. No greater love and all that. Besides, it would only be the weak and the unpatriotic who would be out of work or croak. Those who were prepared to hold their nerve would be absolutely fine.
This didn’t go down well with the Tories’ Caroline Spelman, who was disappointed to discover that her own amendment that had been passed – expressing parliament’s aversion to a no deal – was not being taken as seriously by the government as the Brady amendment.
Barclay had an answer ready. The only way the government could send a clear message to the EU showing we were a nation that could be trusted in negotiations was to act in a thoroughly untrustworthy way by cherry picking the best amendments.
Keir Starmer becomes more impressive with each outing at the despatch box. Mainly because he now merely has to reiterate what everyone, except Barclay, knows – namely that the prime minister was merely running down the clock and, if push came to shove, was quite happy to leave the EU with no deal if that was the price of keeping the Tory party more or less together.
But he is also helped by getting to fend off witless interventions from some Conservatives. James Cleverly tried to claim that May running down the clock was conclusive proof she couldn’t be running down the clock, while Alex Chalk didn’t even seem to realise he had voted against the government’s withdrawal agreement by backing the Brady amendment. This is politics 101. And these are supposed to be two of the Tory party’s rising stars.
The one flaw in the shadow Brexit secretary’s performance was that Labour had yet to come up with an alternative plan of their own. Every time Starmer produces something vaguely sensible, Jeremy Corbyn puts a red line through it. At this rate, Labour and the Tories are in a race to see which party will split first.
Thereafter the debate followed a predictable course. It was the same as every other Brexit debate, only a bit more rubbish. The more serious the situation becomes the more it resembles a third-rate farce.
The only thing that comes close to uniting the Brexiters and remainers is a mutual distrust of anything said by the government front bench. The idea that a minister might actually be able to distinguish between truth and lies – or even achieve something – has become unimaginable.
It ended in chaos. First Anna Soubry pulled her amendment as the government had indicated it would provide an impact analysis of a no-deal Brexit. Then both the leaver and remainer Tories abstained so that the government was defeated on the main motion it had won two weeks previously.
You couldn’t make it up. May could not even win a meaningless vote. Which, ironically, in itself had meaning. Humiliation. For her and the country. The EU must be pissing themselves. How can you negotiate with people who are certifiable?
Corbyn immediately demanded that May got to the despatch box to give a statement declaring she accepted that her strategy had failed and that she would come back with a plan that could win a majority in parliament. Which would have been a start.
Only there was no sign of the prime minister. And none of her ministers was prepared to take the hit for her. Only the sound of a clock ticking to break the silence. May was holed up in Downing Street. Her software stripped bare. Searching for a programme. Any programme. Control. Alt. Delete.
