Before Christmas,
it did seem quite certain that parliament would be voting on the Brexit deal next
week. However, the PM has said today
that it will ‘definitely’ happen, and one of the few near-certainties in
politics is that anything that she says at least three times will ‘definitely’
happen won’t. Her spokesperson has also
used similar wording today, so the probability that the vote will be pulled is
steadily increasing. With the current
PM, everything is always definite right up until the moment when it isn’t. ‘Definite’ is, for her, a time-limited
concept rather like what she would wish the ‘backstop’ to be. It is this flexible and time-limited approach
to the meaning of words which also enables her to insist that nothing has
changed since she said the opposite thing yesterday. It’s another of those things about which she
is ‘very clear’.
She’s
concentrating her efforts on trying to wheedle the EU into agreeing a form of
words on the Irish ‘backstop’ which will enable her to say that she very
clearly hasn’t agreed to what she very clearly did agree in December 2017 and
again last year. But her increasingly
plaintive, not to say desperate, pleas
to the EU to cut her some slack seem doomed to failure; it’s hard to think of anything
that the EU can say or do which will get her off the hook on which her own
peculiar combination of intransigence and consistent inconsistency has placed
her. Even worse, she seems to have got
it into her head that if only she can get some legally-binding form of words
saying that the backstop can only ever be temporary, then her problem is solved. But the existing form of words already makes
it entirely clear (albeit not in the vague and uncertain May sense of ‘clear’)
that the intention is for it to be temporary, and to be in force only until
such time as it is replaced by a shiny new agreement on trade which keeps the border
open.
The problem is
not the form of words used to describe ‘temporary’ but that the PM has not the
faintest idea about how she can negotiate an agreement with the EU which
achieves that underlying aim. And even
if she could, her most fractious backbenchers would not support any deal which achieves
that aim because there is no deal available which simultaneously allows
complete regulatory divergence between two trading areas and an open border. Seeking reassurances about the meaning of the
word ‘temporary’ is addressing the symptom, not the problem.
Posts
3 comments:
addressing symptoms has been the main theme of Party conduct since sometime pre-2016. The Referendum was a response to unease over the appeal of a certain Mr Farage to a big chunk of Tory M.P's and their loyalists out in the country ( including Wales). Classic responding to symptoms when the reality is that the entire party has forever only held together by a mutuality of greedy self interest clothed in a facade of whatever might be fashionable at the time !
Another of this government's serious blunders is Universal Credit. Their response to a suspicion that there was an unacceptable level of benefits fraud was to create a new structure that hurts genuine claimants while the fraudsters, ever resourceful just move on and find another angle. Bu dozy May and a succession of clowns like IDS and dizzy mare McVey just cannot entertain the notion that their chosen remedy is nothing other than an expensive plaster that won't stick !
And decisions on defence spending .... a series of vanity projects and over spends which do little to deal with the real challenges to security.
And there's plenty more where those come from. Some day they may learn that where you play to the gallery citing symptoms as causes you end up with a nasty rash somewhere unpleasant down by the ballot box.
Mrs May-Day has got herself I a bit of bind. Not entirely her fault, as the EU have been giving the Republic total support for their stance and not encouraging innovative ways around the border issue.
But we are where we are, but the difficulty we have with the “agreement” is that they have included a “trust me clause” in a binding contract – not a good idea in any form of agreement.
If you sit across the table with a contract provider and they say “trust me” it normally works well when those exact same people are there to implement and administer the agreement, but if you sit there and the provider is a company that will be taken over two months after the ink is dry, then it`s worthless and trust goes “exit stage left”.
The EU may see changes after the May elections which is predicted to produce a different profile in their parliament, this will but some pressure on the Commissioners and certain faces are due for a change. In the UK, Brother Corbyn awaits and while it is difficult to know what the Labour party stance is on this issue, Brother Corbyn was totally against the Common Market (like yourself) and has been principled ever since, by voting against every treaty legislation put to parliament.
What happens next? – you might as well flip a coin.
Spirit,
"If you sit across the table with a contract provider and they say “trust me” it normally works well when those exact same people are there to implement and administer the agreement, but if you sit there and the provider is a company that will be taken over two months after the ink is dry, then it`s worthless and trust goes “exit stage left”." Completely agree with the basic point here, although it doesn't require a change of personnel. Some years ago I found myself trying to execute a contract with a very difficult customer, and asked the guy who'd drawn up the contract how on earth he'd managed to get us into that situation. His response was that, "when we signed the contract, we thought we were dealing with honorable people". It's a mistake that the EU27 are not going to make, especially when the people they are dealing with are openly talking about reneging on debt and seeking to tear up the contract the day after signing it.
Post a Comment