There are now only two possibilities left. Either no one has told Theresa May the result of last year’s general election and she is under the impression she has a 100-seat majority in the Commons. Or she simply cannot count. Whichever it is, we’re long past the point where the prime minister’s much-prized fortitude and stoicism has slipped into pig-headedness and outright stupidity.
Or possibly madness. If insanity is repeating the same mistake and expecting a different result, then the prime minister is in urgent need of clinical help. Not content with having come to the Commons twice in the past week to give a statement on the Brexit withdrawal agreement and the future declaration, which has been rubbished by almost everyone in Britain, May was back for a third time after the weekend’s EU council meeting to make exactly the same case as before. And to receive precisely the same overwhelmingly hostile reaction.
There was a time when May used to endlessly repeat: “Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.” At some point over the past few weeks, her default settings have been rerouted to: “Everything has been agreed when nothing has been agreed.” No one should get hung up on the backstop arrangements that have been agreed because everyone had privately agreed they should never be used. This was the best deal because it was the only deal. People wanted certainty and she was giving them the guaranteed certainty of prolonged uncertainty. She sat down to near silence from her own benches.
Jeremy Corbyn replied using almost the exact same words he had used in his last two outings at the dispatch box. If the prime minister couldn’t be bothered to make an effort, then why should he? Her deal was a bad deal because it delivered a Brexit that was simultaneously too hard and too soft. Sooner or later someone is going to point out to him he can’t have it both ways. Or perhaps not. At the moment, all that’s required of him is to be one step ahead of May. Something the average 10-year-old can manage.
Then came the inevitable pile-on. From the usual suspects, called by the speaker in the same predictable order. Iain Duncan Smith, David Davis, Bill Cash and John Redwood. Anna Soubry briefly livened things up by pointing out that, since it was obvious the prime minister’s plan stood no chance of getting through parliament, it would be interesting to know if she had a plan B. May was outraged. It had been hard enough work trying to sign off a 600-page document that everyone hated, so expecting her to come up with something that people actually liked was out the question.
Nor was there any respite from the Labour benches as Hilary Benn, Yvette Cooper, Chris Leslie and Rachel Reeves asked questions to which the prime minister had no answer. There was no point in having a second referendum because you couldn’t trust the people to come up with the answer you wanted. And it was completely absurd to argue that the UK would be worse off by leaving the EU, because there were so many other ways to measure prosperity than people being broke. Just think of the feelgood factor of dressing in rags. Blessed are the poor, for they shall disinherit Northern Ireland and Gibraltar.
One hour into the statement and not a single MP had spoken in support of her deal. Even Michael Fallon, normally one of May’s most loyal of sidekicks, put the boot in. Then Dominic Grieve observed that May’s “People’s Letter” was riddled with inaccuracies. May looked bewildered. She’d always assumed the electorate enjoyed being lied to. The first vague hint of support came from Caroline Spelman. Wrong time, wrong person. Spelman is already a dame, so can’t be bought off with honours. May passed a note to the chief whip, Julian Smith, most likely a reminder to him to bung a few hundred thousand to Spelman’s West Midlands constituency for pothole repairs. Brexit was getting to be an expensive business.
Long before the end, May cut an increasingly isolated and forlorn figure. A prime minister out of time, out of her depth and out of ideas. Praying on a miracle that was never going to come. Going home every evening to curl in a foetal ball, howling a primal scream of despair. Knowing that this was merely the beginning of a two-week period that could only end in humiliation and failure. This time, nothing really had changed. There might not have been a method in her madness. But there sure as hell was a madness in her method.
