The wrong answer whatever the question

An accurate assessment of the state of British politics at the moment is that if the answer is Theresa May, then you must be asking the wrong question. Unless, that is, the question is, “Who is the British politician least likely to give a straight answer to a straight question?” Or possibly, “Which British Prime Minister shows less emotion than her Madame Tussaud’s waxwork figure?" Or even, “Who’s the Prime Minister who promised an impression of Margaret Thatcher but actually delivered one of a comedy matron in a Carry On film?" But other than that, Theresa May is invariably the wrong answer to the wrong question.

The Tory party is teetering on the edge of exploding, which, under normal circumstances, would be a good thing. Indeed, something to applaud. The problem is, however, that they’re hell bent on taking the rest of us with them as they go up in smoke. The entire UK is being held to ransom by a small group of far-right Conservative MPs for whom the hardest possible Brexit is an article of faith. Negotiating with them is not possible. Compromises with them are not possible. These are people who have never changed their minds since Margaret Thatcher became leader of the Conservative party and they dropped any pretence of the paternalistic One Nation Conservatism of the first half of the 20th century. They were wrong then, and they’re still wrong now. Theresa May is staking her job on placating the implacable, at the expense of what’s good for everyone else.

This is the Conservative party which says that it damages the national interest to release the UK government study which demonstrates that any form of Brexit is bad for the national interest. Absolute cobblers. The biggest threat to the national interests of the UK is the Conservative party itself. They appear not to give a toss about what’s best for most people in Britain, as they pursue a Brexit that will benefit mostly the rich and the well connected.

The cultist Brexiteers of the Tory right are sure as hell not trying to take the UK out of the protections afforded to ordinary workers and citizens by the human rights and protective legislation of the EU in order to transform Britain into a paradise of civil liberties and employment rights. They’re not taking the UK out of the EU in order to strengthen protections against the exploitation of working people by global companies. They’re going to destroy what public services remain. They’re going to sell off what public assets are left. They’re going to offer lucrative contracts to their friends in big business. Their post-Brexit Britain for the rich means impoverishment for the rest of us.

But it’s what the people voted for! It's the will of the people! They cry repeatedly. Absolute cobblers again. The people didn’t vote to see their real income fall. They didn’t vote for their children to live in penury. They didn’t vote to lose their jobs. They voted on the basis of lies told to them by the Brexit Bunch. They insist that Britain must be outside the customs union, outside the single market, and they insist that’s what people voted for. Well, it bloody well isn’t. The people had a chance to vote for the hard Brexit of the Conservatives in June 2017: they looked at it, they looked at Theresa May, they turned up their noses and they stripped the Tories of their majority.

It’s not even that this government doesn’t know what it wants out of Brexit, what kind of Brexit that it would like to achieve. It would be bad enough if Theresa and her co-conspirators were simply clueless. But they do know exactly what sort of Brexit that they want, and they know that it doesn’t exist. They want a Brexit that allows Britain to leave the customs union, to leave the single market, to be free from all and any EU rules and regulations, but to still enjoy the exact same access to the EU for trade and services that Britain has right now. They want to restrict the right of EU citizens to settle, work and live in the UK, but for British citizens to have the exact same freedom of movement and settlement that they currently have. And they know that the EU will never consent to any of this. But facing up to that reality means that the Conservative party has to face up to the extremists in its own ranks. Some would say that we’re being governed by hypocrites, cowards and liars. But I'm much too polite.

Facing up to that reality means facing up to the truth that Britain isn’t special. Britain isn’t great. It’s just a middle ranking European country with a WW2 fetish about a plucky little island that stood alone. The hard line Brexiteers forget that Britain didn’t win the war all by itself. It only won because it was part of the Allies. The clue is in the name. If you want to win, you need friends. All that Brexit is achieving is to destroy what friendships that the UK has left. This isn’t a plucky little island that’s punching above its weight. It’s an international laughing stock.

We’re in for a rough ride, but there’s one thing we can all be quite certain of. However bad things get in the UK, however low this state sinks, however much national humiliation is heaped upon it, the Conservatives will protect themselves and their friends in the city and the rest of us will pay the price of Tory hubris. And that really makes me angry.