Rewriting history

History, they say, is written by the victors and so it seems to be with Brexit. Bernard Jenkin, has written an article claiming that: No one foresaw that any government would make such a mess of Brexit in which he says that he, Bill Cash, John Redwood, Owen Paterson, and a few others, were right to warn that leaving the EU would be "a long and disputed negotiation."  This is a stunning rewriting of history from men who were prominent in the campaign which accused anyone who raised any potential problems as 'scaremongers'.

As far as I remember, the entire campaign was about how easy it would all be, even when it was obvious that it would be a long and painful negotiation - and virtually all the disputes during the negotiations were on our side anyway with Jenkin front and centre..

The four stooges (Redwood, Cash, Paterson and Jenkin) contributed to a pamphlet produced by the CSJ and Legatum following a conference in October 2016 where they all clung to the idea it would all be very simple. A quick glance through its 63 pages reveals these gems:

Jenkins (page 46) "in principle, leaving the EU is simple."

Redwood (page 14) has a section entitled  "Quick and easy Brexit"

Cash (page 54) talked about his own draft "short six-clause framework Bill to provide for the repeal of the European Communities Act." In fact it eventually ran to 68 clauses and 435 pages with its explanatory notes and all.

The Irish border gets just two mentions in the entire 63 pages, once in the executive summary and once by Redwood, both in connection with EU immigrants requiring a work permit (page 15).  Jenkin and Cash didn't see any problems at all.

Redwood said, "The Irish border would operate as today, but any continental EU migrant using that border would need a work permit to get a job."  That was it.

Nobody gave a second thought about the Good Friday Agreement or goods traded across the EU's border in Ireland - or indeed who was an EU immigrant and who wasn't.

Words like quick, simple or easy didn't appear in Paterson's contribution but nowhere did he warn that it would be long and disputed. His was a long list of cherries to be picked.  Peter Lilley made an appearance and talked breezily about having either tariff free trade or WTO terms and said, "Both options are pretty simple."

No, what we are seeing is a complete rewriting of history to exonerate the guilty.  As for nobody foreseeing how "any government would make such a mess of Brexit" - that was pretty clear right from June 24 when it emerged that the government had no plan for Brexit and ever since it has become clearer that nobody who advocated Brexit had the slightest idea of what it actually meant.

Matt Hancock

Hancock resigned yesterday - Johnson didn't sack him and in his reply, the PM ended by saying:

"I am grateful for your support and believe that your contribution to public service is far from over.”

It is not clear how "totally f*****g hopeless" you have to be to be permanently excluded from the levers of power and I assume Johnson thinks Hancock will one day be restored to cabinet - perhaps when he is released from prison since, to make a bad week worse, The Good Law Project (GLP) is referring him and Patel to the Serious Fraud Office in connection with a PPE contract:

Why we are referring a series of transactions involving the Prime Minister's advisor Munira Mirza, Priti Patel and Matt Hancock to the Serious Fraud Office. THREAD.

— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) June 25, 2021

The Times this morning is reporting that Hancock regularly used his own private email address to conduct government business, This is from The Independent (no paywall):

"According to The Sunday Times, the former health secretary, who resigned from his role on Saturday, regularly used a private email account for government dealings, thereby concealing information from officials and potentially from the public.

"The Times said it had obtained documents proving Mr Hancock had routinely been using his personal email since March 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic began.

"The disclosure was reportedly revealed in minutes from a meeting between senior officials at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).

David Williams, the department’s second permanent secretary, warned that Mr Hancock 'only' deals with his office 'via Gmail account'."

One has to ask why he would do this in connection with multi-million pound PPE contracts?  I noted yesterday on the GLP website I think, that in one email exchange on a contract, someone sent an email to him and he (Secretary of State for Health remember) responded within a minute.  This would be a surprise by anybody but a cabinet minister?  And on one contract?  It is literally jaw dropping for me.

This story is going to run for a very long time.