When people look back on Brexit in years to come, whatever the final outcome, I think the character and personality of the prime minister will be front and centre of the long running fiasco. She didn't invent Brexit, that was down to her predecessor, the reckless fool David Cameron, but there is no doubt she took it on whole heartedly and the resulting chaos is all down to her. She inherited a mess and made a disaster out of it.
Her stubbornness, poor judgement, mistakes and sheer inability to think big or long term have brought us to the abyss.
She never thought beyond the unity of the Conservative party, made massive strategic mistakes and couldn't row back or compromise until forced to do so by events. She never made any effort to bring the two sides together.
Now, after asking for a delay to June 30th at the summit of EU leaders on 22nd March and having it refused, Mrs May yesterday sent a letter to Donald Tusk, President of the European Council (HERE) asking for a delay to - June 30th! You couldn't make it up. The actual letter is HERE.
This comes just a few hours after the European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker insisted (HERE) there would be 'no more short delays', and set an 'ultimate deadline' of April 12 'for the approval of the withdrawal agreement by the House of Commons'. It is as if our PM is deaf as well as stubborn.
She told them before the March summit that she was 'confident' she would get her deal through the House before the 29th (and we all know how that went) and asked for a technical delay to June 30th to get legislation completed. The EU 27 didn't believe her confidence and didn't think she had a plan B, so they produced one for her. This gave her until March 29th to pass her deal, which would have then led to a short extension up to May 23rd. Failing that, she then had until April 12th to come up with an alternative robust plan for a longer extension and also take part in European elections.
The letter she wrote yesterday asks for exactly the same June 30th date (which is probably too short anyway) but it has no real 'plan' that I can see, just a commitment to consult with the opposition and give parliament another go at voting something through, something she has already tried several times. A German MP (HERE) has said a short delay doesn't make sense, except to make it palatable to the ERG, it only creates another cliff edge in the future. It does however, commit us to taking part in the European elections - look out for the manifesto on those!
By the way, for anyone who thinks the letter renders the Cooper/Letwin Bill unnecessary this article HERE explains that it doesn't. The House of Commons can still demand the PM ask for an extension to a date the House chooses which might be different to the one Theresa May has requested. So, the answer is no, it does not.
In her Dear Donald letter she writes, 'If a consensus is to be found, compromise will be needed on all sides, in the national interest'.
On that note, how are the talks with Corbyn going?
After three days (3 days!) of intensive talks between the government and the Labour party, Sir Kier Starmer emerges to tell us Mrs May is not planning any changes (HERE). When she says 'compromise will be needed on all sides' it's clear she means everybody else's side.
The PM's mind is a complete paradox. It is mystery wrapped in an enigma to paraphrase Churchill.
The EU 27 are now positioning themselves to give us the final push over the cliff edge next Friday (HERE). This is the cliff we have ourselves been threatening to jump off for two years. It is going to place the prime minister in a real dilemma. If she can't get the delay she wants, does she leave without a deal or not? How confident is she that the nation could really cope? Is no deal really better than a bad deal? We may finally get to find out what she thinks.
As we get to the nitty-gritty, the true scale of the disaster about to engulf us becomes clearer. If we do manage to get a long delay and have to hold European elections a whole section of the population is going to be furious. The leavers who thought we should (or could) have left in 2016 will lose what little faith they had in politicians. On the other hand, if we are forcibly ejected from the EU, unprepared as we are to handle the shock, they will be furious with other politicians who convinced them it would all be fine - look out David Davis and BoJo, among many other guilty men and women.
Perhaps Brexit will one day be seen as marking the beginning of a much more precipitous national decline.
We have been slowly going downhill for more than a century. Now the chronic state of our education system has resulted in a population who cannot understand the world around them or why we have reached such a low ebb in our national fortunes. It has allowed the legislature to be filled with stupid men and women, half-witted demagogues without a shred of understanding themselves about the bloc we have been part of for the last 45 years, but who faithfully represent the people.
I am sorry to say this but it's true.
