When a government minister says something is “perfectly clear” it almost always means it isn’t. When that minister is Philip Hammond and themessage is repeated on an endless loop, then it definitely isn’t. The foreign secretary is the culmination of decades of Silicon Valley innovation to create the world’s first political digibot: half man, half computer, Hammond has turned opacity into an artform by developing a voice and language so dull, no one has ever remained conscious long enough to survive one of his sentences.
Who better, then, to introduce the second reading of the government’s EU referendum bill than the Philibot? The only thing the prime minister has clarified in his position over Europe in the past few days is that he doesn’t really have one, other than to keep the Eurosceptics in his party off his back while keeping the UK in the EU. Everything else – timing, negotiations and Tory party discipline – is up for grabs.
“Everything is totally clear,” the Philibot monotoned, to the almost universal scepticism of his own benches. Of the 75 Conservative MPs who turned up for the debate, all but three were fully signed up members of the “Britain Out” wing; the first significant intervention, though, came from Europhile Ken Clarke, who reminded Hammond that the original 1975 referendum had dealt with the very questions of sovereignty the foreign secretary claimed it hadn’t.
“Everything is totally clear,” the Philibot carried on, undeterred, knowing his best form of defence was incomprehensibility. “Section 125 is close quotes unanswerable and inappropriate.” Throughout the chamber, eyes spontaneously closed. “The timetable for the referendum will be any time between tomorrow and 31 December 2017 and, after a careful few seconds thought, I have decided that voter eligibility should be exactly the same as for a general election. Apart from the Lords. They should definitely have a vote. And Gibraltar, come to think of it.”
Andrew Gwynne, Labour member for Denton and Reddish, then asked which of the powers the foreign secretary had said Brussels had too many of, would the government be seeking to get back. “The honourable gentleman has fallen into an obvious trap,” the Philibot replied. “He asks me to set out a list of powers for repatriation, then invites me to say that the prime minister would have failed if we did not achieve the repatriation of every single one of them”.
The only person to have fallen in to a trap was Hammond himself. Somewhere in the the IT nerve centre of Conservative Central Office, the Philibot’s remote controller must have dozed off, enabling the foreign secretary to let the cat out of the bag.
Anything Cameron managed to negotiate would be a massive success and fundamental to recommending a yes vote. Anything he failed to negotiate would be considered unimportant and insignificant to the UK’s interests. Realising the Philibot’s hard drive must have failed, the remote controller frantically began to turn off the switches. First Hammond’s voice went silent, then his body crumpled back on to the benches. The Europe minister, David Liddington, carefully picked up the fuse that fell out of Hammond’s ear and placed it in his pocket.
The shadow foreign secretary, Hilary Benn, did not have much to add. The EU referendum is a matter of profound indifference to Labour. They are happy to support anything that’s going to split the Tory party and which they are confident of winning.
Thereafter the floor was given over to the Eurosceptics who took it in turn to cry “foul”. “The vote was being rigged in advance,” they insisted. With some justification. Their problem was it was MPs such as Owen Paterson – a former minister dim enough to have been outwitted by badgers – who were advancing these claims. When Paterson speaks, no one listens.
