Yesterday began with Mrs May penning an article in The Sunday Times with the title: My Withdrawal Agreement Bill will be a good new offer to MPs. In it she says, "When the WA Bill comes before MPs [in a couple of weeks] it will represent a new, bold offer to MPs across the House of Commons, with an improved package of measures that I believe can win new support". We needn't have worried that she was about to surprise us. It turned out to be not even a damp squib.
By the end of the day The Telegraph was reporting a leaked memo claimed it was just a retread of old ideas (HERE). The editorial (HERE) says the offer will in fact be neither bold or new. Essentially it's the same deal as before perhaps with some tinsel and a little bell and whistle on it.
I am sorry to say Theresa May has become an irrelevance.
Nobody is even listening to her any more. The announcement that she will set a timetable for the election of a new leader and her subsequent departure has rendered her so. The final attempt to get her deal approved will fail - probably by an even larger margin than the 58 she lost by the last time. Some Tory MPs who supported the PM before say they won't support her again - Richard Drax has said as much quite explicitly. A few Labour MPs might switch but it looks unlikely it will be anywhere near enough to make up for the ones on her own side that are peeling off.
The Irish Foreign Minister, Simon Coveney, says the EU won't renegotiate the deal even with May's successor (HERE) so I assume whatever she thought was bold and new could only be towards a softer, closer Brexit as a way of attracting more Labour support and it will only impact the implementation of the WA in UK law, not the WA itself. Labour have confirmed they won't support the bill when it comes to parliament (HERE).
In her Sunday Times article, she blames MPs for blocking a no deal Brexit:
"A majority of MPs are against leaving without a deal; whatever you think of that outcome, parliament will do all it can to block it"
This is our pusillanimous 'leader' hiding behind MPs and channelling the anger of half the nation onto the men and women who are trying their best to avoid a national crisis and stop an economic disaster. She knows her mantra of no deal is better than a bad deal was wrong but rather than admit it, she deflects blame onto the innocent and the blameless. She is the worst kind of leader, a bloody difficult woman indeed.
In The Telegraph last Saturday, the Conservative MP Crispin Blunt, another nutjob, has an article urging the Conservatives to join forces with The Brexit Party (HERE). He recognises the Tories are in a crisis and accuses the PM of a failure of nerve and leadership. However, he obviously doesn't think the crisis is quite deep enough and wants the party to form an alliance with Nigel Farage - a sort of suicide pact for both parties.
Blunt has finally caught up with May's promise in 2017 for he writes:
"Addressing the 1922 committee in the wake of the 2017 General Election fiasco, Theresa May declared, 'I got us into this mess, I will get us out.' That hasn’t quite worked out, to put it mildly. The 'mess' has become potentially terminal for her party and has certainly proven fatal for her reputation". This is something I posted about in January (HERE).
That Brexit has become a 'mess' is something the remain side forecast would happen before and after the referendum but we were told it would all be so easy.
According to Sky (HERE) following discussions with ministers this morning, a full meeting of the cabinet will consider plans for a series of indicative parliamentary votes on alternative Brexit options. What a waste of time that will be.
All thoughts are now turning to her successor. The campaigns of all the hopefuls (most of the parliamentary party) are gearing up for a hot summer of infighting and backstabbing, briefing and smearing their way to No 10. Whichever Brexiteer comes through (and it will be a Brexiteer) is expected to go to Brussels and 'demand' a renegotiation. Brussels will refuse; both more talks and an extension. By then the October 31st deadline will be looming large and the new and untried PM will have to make a choice. Is it to leave with no deal or remain?
Either way, I'm not sure they will last until Xmas.
Andrew Rawsley in The Observer (HERE) has also now come to the conclusion that there is no middle ground and that the options are no deal or no Brexit, something I have argued on this blog for a very long time. Mrs May has tested to destruction the theory that there is some 'middle way' - a compromise that both sides might agree on. There isn't. Wolfgang Schauble was right when he said before the referendum (HERE):
"If the majority in Britain opts for Brexit, that would be a decision against the single market. In is in. Out is out. One has to respect the sovereignty of the British people."
He was right. We will finally have to choose in or out. The decision will be so momentous it will have to be put back to the people in a confirmatory vote.
In which case, my money is firmly on IN.
