Crikey, there was a veritable tsunami of reports about the "deal" after news broke yesterday afternoon of a technical agreement being reached. It was as if the floodgates had been opened. Unfortunately, in a blow to the prime minister, not one report, as far as I could see, contained words like triumph or success or win or victory. In fact the exact opposite. It was as if the waiter had whisked a highly polished silver cloche off the dish of nouveau cuisine you had expected, only to reveal a steaming pile of foul smelling doggy doo-doo.
Bear in mind that only a small, select band have read the entire agreement and know the whole picture.
In spite of that, the deal seems to have been universally condemned. As the day goes by it will probably expose the utter folly of trying to keep the most important and contentious aspects secret inside a very small group. Now the detail is available, all those who weren't consulted will be unhappy.
It seems that the deal will maintain a customs union and close regulatory alignment either temporarily or more permanently. If so, Lord Mandelson sums up the deal perfectly, writing (HERE) in the FT, "The paradox is intrinsic to Brexit: we can only secure continuity of frictionless trade by complying with the rules but without a say in them once the UK has left the EU". In other words the only way we can take back control is to relinquish control to the EU. We will be able to say we're out while continuing to give all the effects and appearance of being in. Mad eh?
The Guardian HERE is suggesting the deal will be so well received in cabinet that they are openly discussing which ministers will resign today!
Gary Gibbon at Channel 4, struggling to find the right analogy, says the Brexit storm has made landfall HERE as if a hurricane was about to annihilate everything in its path over the next few hours.
BoJo says we'll be turned into a vassal state (HERE), although he hasn't seen the agreement yet, but since facts have never troubled the idiot in the past why start now? He has been saying that for the first time in a thousand years the British Parliament will have no control over our laws
The chronically consumptive undertaker, aka Jacob Rees-Mogg, MP for Somerset North, says the white flags have gone up all over Whitehall (HERE) and we're on our way to becoming a slave state. If so, one can easily imagine him standing in front of the genetically modified sugar cane crop with a bull whip in hand. Don't worry the Rees-Moggs will find a way to make more money whatever happens.
Nigel Farage, again without reading anything (how perceptive these Brexiteers are), says it's the worst deal in history (HERE). Amazing how he is starting to copy Donald Trump isn't it? I thought NAFTA was the worst deal in history?
The Independent says Theresa May faces a showdown with her cabinet (HERE) while at The Guardian it's a bunfight she faces (HERE). Reuters report Ian Duncan Smith forecasting the end of the government if the deal is as it is being reported (HERE) It is the first day of reckoning with many more to come.
Robert Hutton, a journalist at Bloomberg, captured the whole mess by quoting an anonymous Tory MP in a tweet just after news of the deal came out:
Tory MP outside the Commons chamber: "We're going to hell."— Robert Hutton (@RobDotHutton) 13 November 2018
We can only pray he's right.
