A poacher in Missouri found guilty of killing hundreds of deer has been sentenced to watching the Disney film Bambi repeatedly whilst in prison. This got me thinking…So what should the feckless politicians in the UK watch as we hurtle towards Brexit? Here are a few ideas:

Theresa May: The Great Escape

A mass escape from a high security prison run by the Germans is just the film TM needs to watch as her options of leaving the EU shrink to zero. Sadly, it doesn’t have a happy ending for many…

Jeremy Corbyn: X-Men: Days of Future Past

The X-Men send beasts into the past in a desperate attempt to change history and bring back socialism to prevent an event that dooms humans. OK, political licence… that bit about socialism is my addition…

Vince Cable: Gravity

A science fiction thriller about a crew stranded in space after an alliance with the Tories leads to a mid-orbit destruction of their vessel. Desperate to return to Earth and influence the EU debate, the Liberal Democrats search in vain for a route back to relevance…

Jacob Rees-Mogg: V for Vendetta

Depicting a dystopian and post-apocalyptic near-future history of the UK, the film features an anarchist revolutionary who begins an elaborate and theatrical revolutionist campaign to destroy his captors (the EU Commission), bring down the fascist state (the EU) and convince the people to abandon democracy in favour of the anarchy of free markets…

Boris Johnson: Love Actually

A recently elected Prime Minister embarks on an affair with a new junior member of the household staff. Seeking her out to talk to her, he tracks her down to a multi-school Christmas play (a long story…). As the two try to keep from being seen and watch the show from backstage, they finally kiss. All their hiding was for nothing because as the curtain rises, they are seen kissing by everyone. The Prime Minister eventually does the decent thing…and re-joins the EU…

Nigel Farage: Alien: Covenant

A joint American/British production, it features a journey from the EU to a remote planet where members of a space ship, Covenant, discover what they think to be an uncharted free-market paradise only to find a mysterious world which soon turns dark and dangerous. Hostile alien life-forms called lawyers force the crew into a deadly fight for survival…

So there you are. Some entertaining films for politicians to relax in front of as they contemplate an EU departure in 2019. They had better enjoy their break. Things are only going to get more turbulent next year.

Happy Christmas!

 

TM won solidly but no more than that. She will soldier on, probably deliver a Brexit deal of sorts and then depart, barring unforeseen circumstances…Will the media stop saying she is wounded and let her get on with the job? Almost certainly not. And yet she is no more wounded than the Tory Party as a whole.

What yesterday’s vote showed is that the Tory Party is split from top to bottom; from those who support a centre-right, moderate approach to the EU and indeed broader issues versus those Brexit extremists who often drift into social conservatism.

Here are a few Blue on Blue quotes from yesterday:

The vote will “…flush out the extremists”, Philip Hammond, Chancellor of the Exchequer.

“It’s a terrible result for the Prime Minister…she ought to go and see the Queen urgently and resign…”, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Leader of the European Research Group.

“It wasn’t enough so one wing of the party can drive a stake through the European Research Group, and it’s not enough for the other wing to drive a stake through her heart”. Anonymous minister.

A terrible day for the Tory Party; a terrible day for the country as a whole. The Government’s internal strife ensures a satisfactory conclusion to the Brexit drama is almost as far away as ever. The UK’s standing globally is diminishing by the day and economically it will be poorer regardless of almost any EU solution.

The country deserves better; politics deserves better. It is increasingly difficult to see how the two halves of the Tory Party can ever be reconciled. And with the Labour frontbench manifestly unfit to govern, the odds of a new centrist party being created ahead of the next General Election just got a good deal stronger. A silver lining to some very dark clouds.

 

The Prime Minister’s sense of public duty has been awesome to watch; her treatment by her colleagues has been terrible to watch. In challenging her leadership now, the Tory Party has lost its collective marbles. It is surely abrogating its right to govern in the face of its disgraceful behaviour over Brexit.

The leadership challenge to the PM is vainglorious and destructive to the country’s future. The public believes the Tories are increasing unfit to govern, and quite right too.  Only the prospect of a Corbyn government has saved them in the past. No longer. A Corbyn government may just be what the Tories (but not the country!) deserves.

I hope I am wrong but, sadly, it might be tough for TM to survive. She has made too many mistakes. Her first one was her hubris in 2016. TM’s ‘red-lines’, ensuring no ECJ jurisdiction, no freedom of movement (the main driver for the Brexit victory whatever some sympathetic Brexit commentators might say), no customs union and triggering Article 50 prevented room for manoeuvre. Leaving the EU became increasingly intractable and breaking those red lines has allowed her enemies to pounce. From where she started there could be no Norway option and no easy Northern Ireland border solution. She unwittingly created the stage for a humiliating row back, setting us up for where we are today.

Her next mistake was a firm denial of a General Election, only to hold one. Remind you of this week? Politicians can’t keep saying no and then suddenly say yes…

These last few days were always going to be tricky in delaying the meaningful vote. Floating a delay in advance risked greater defeat, but who on earth advised TM to be so adamant about no delay in the vote even up to Monday morning? Cabinet ministers fanned out to say the vote would happen, only to be left dangling a few hours later, when this decision was reversed.

Her authority is severely damaged, hence today’s leadership vote, but despite her mistakes, shame on those Tory colleagues who have made her job impossible; shame on the appalling, stupid, self-serving Labour front bench and shame about the overall state of British politics. It is no solution to the Brexit mess to change the PM now.

What next? TM is fighting to hold on to her premiership and deserves to win if only to get Brexit through in March. No colleague has earned the right to replace her. But Tory MPs are a treacherous electorate and I fear she may not make it. So a few brave predictions:

• TM wins the leadership vote by a narrow margin. 55/45
• TM goes anyway this week. 45/55
• If TM wins and stays, she will broker a deal which will be passed by Parliament in January. 70/30
• If she goes, she will be replaced by an interim Tory leader who requests to leave the EU at a later date. 100/0
• A newly elected leader will not come from the Brexit extremes so step forward the likes of Sajid Javid or someone similar. 70/30
• Implosion of the Government and a General Election 40/60. This was always the least likely option but the Tories are losing control, the public are appalled and the odds are rising.
• A Norway EU departure option in the event of a new leader. 40/60. Climbing up the charts…
• A People’s Vote. 40/60. Climbing up the charts…
• A no-deal. 20/80. Falling in the charts…

We are in this Brexit chaos entirely due to the Tories’ European psychodrama. I hope TM holds on, but in today’s very act of trying to remove her, the Tories are increasingly forfeiting their right to govern.

Roll on a new centrist political party to improve the future choice available to us.

 

Such is my professional life, I attended a Pensions conference in Dublin this week as the guest of the editor of a leading pensions investment magazine. Needless to say, Brexit loomed large in nearly all discussions.

Here are a few thoughts from key guest speakers, delegates (and a few taxi drivers!) on the UK and Brexit. I am not saying they are wholly representative but they were the sentiments that I heard most frequently expressed in conversations:

• The mess we have got ourselves into is embarrassing and damaging to the UK’s reputation. It is (and will continue to do so) speeding up our declining influence in the world.
• Are we mad, stupid or both?
• That in voting for Brexit, we have entirely over-reacted. We should have just ignored many of Europe’s strictures rather than leave. Many other countries do this.
• That we will be missed in the EU as a voice of common sense, particularly by the Irish.
• That there is no way there can be a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Its symbolism would be disastrous. Some in the UK, like the ludicrous Boris Johnson, underestimate this. The Troubles are still too fresh in people’s minds.
• Many people in the UK and Ireland are ambivalent about the political direction of Northern Ireland anyway.
• Leaving European security structures such as those that allow for a European Arrest Warrant would significantly damage our safety.
• The value of an Irish passport is soaring…

As the week unfolded and the chaos got worse in parliament, there was growing sympathy for our predicament. And you know how dangerous that is…

The fact is that the hard Brexiteers, in unwitting collusion with the Opposition, have overplayed their hand this week. Theresa May stumbled and should have published the legal advice on her deal; but she will not go quietly into the night now after all the pain and suffering. The meaningful vote might well be delayed if it looks like she is facing a rout.

There is no point in further speculation. Literally anything might happen in the next few days. But what is clear is that the odds of a People’s Vote have got shorter and the odds of a no-deal longer as parliament gets back in the driving seat. That is the only good news in a week of political calamities. To get us through all this, as they say in Dublin, we will need the luck of the Irish…