30 Little Ministers

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30 Gov’ment ministers sent far and wide

Told to get the people on Theresa’s side

For 40 million voters they were given 2 days each –

A target unattainable; completely out of reach

The spectacle of 30 government ministers being sent scuttling around the UK over the weekend to drum up support for Theresa May’s Brexit deal is just the latest twist in the long-running farce which Brexit has become.  The stated reason is, of course, as disingenuous as everything else that the Prime Minister says.  Even if it were possible for 30 people in 2 days to win over the millions – Leavers and Remainers alike – who think that the deal is a bad one, she has no intention of allowing them to vote anyway. 

I saw a snatch of an interview with Michael Heseltine in which he said that sending them around the country was a good idea – not because they would actually persuade anyone, but because it would get them out of London and away from the London media, the plotters and the leakers.  It would, he said, get them out of No 10’s hair.  It’s a rather cynical view.

Perhaps the PM really believes that people in their masses will be motivated to contact their MPs to demand that they vote for the deal.  But if she gave the matter a moment’s thought and considered perhaps how many of her own constituents ever contacted her about a political issue while she was a back-bencher, she would realise that it would only ever be a tiny proportion – what might be called the ‘usual suspects’. 

It seems to me that the only credible target of this onslaught of ministers (have I just invented a new collective noun there?) would be members of the Conservative Party.  It is, just, conceivable that at least some of those members might be motivated to demand that their MP show a little more loyalty to their elected government.  In such a scenario, having to hear the message on news programmes is just collateral damage for the rest of us in what is really yet another internal party discussion.  I doubt, though, that even that would be successful.  The indications are that Tory members out in the constituencies are much more likely to support ‘no deal’ than the agreement that she has negotiated.

Maybe Heseltine really has hit the nail on the head, and it’s all just a glorified form of displacement activity.