REMEMBER, THE TORIES GOT US INTO THIS MESS.

REMEMBER, THE TORIES GOT US INTO THIS MESS.

All the way through the Referendum campaign, we were assured that leaving the EU didn’t necessarily mean leaving the customs union or the single market. As the Brexit vote was won for leave on the very narrowest of margins, you’d think that would mean that the government would attempt to reconcile those who voted to remain, and would seek a form of Brexit which was least likely to exacerbate a deep and bitter division. And pigs might fly. This is the UK, and in the UK the winner takes all and the loser can get stuffed. The UK still hasn’t grasped the distinction between democracy and majoritarianism. As soon as the Brexit vote was in, the Conservatives decided that what it really meant was that the country wanted the most extreme, the most self-harming, the most destructive Brexit possible.

REMEMBER, THE TORIES GOT US INTO THIS MESS.

The Secretary of State for International Trade, Dr Liam Fox, once boasted that a trade deal with the EU would be the “easiest in human history” to negotiate because the French need us to buy their wine and the Germans need us to buy their cars. This sort of wisdom and insight explains why the government, which the disgraced former defence secretary inexplicably remains a part of, wasn’t making contingency plans for the UK falling out of the EU without a deal.
Now Liam has changed his tune, and is saying that it looks increasingly likely that the UK’s Brexit bus will crash out without a deal, and admits that it’s a strong possibility. This is, of course, according to Liam, entirely the fault of the EU for wilfully refusing to grant the UK all the benefits of EU membership without any of the annoying obligations that come with it.

REMEMBER, THE TORIES GOT US INTO THIS MESS.

Of course what this is really about is Liam and his fellow Brexists getting their excuses in early. If, as anyone who isn’t wearing a Union Jack blindfold can see coming, Brexit ends up as an unmitigated disaster, Liam is determined to make sure that it’s those Germans with their towels on the sunloungers who take the blame for it. In Liam’s universe it’s certainly not Liam’s fault. It’s certainly not the fault of all those Brexit fanatics who swore blind that the UK could leave the EU and still enjoy unfettered access to the EU’s single market without having to sign up to freedom of movement and those other EU freedoms that they didn’t like. It’s certainly not the fault of a British Conservative party which has spent the past two years arguing with itself about a series of positions that the EU had already stated were unacceptable, instead of spending their time working on a Brexit which might actually work in the real world. It’s certainly not their fault because they’re British, and that means they’re plucky, and everyone in Europe looks up to them, because of Dunkirk and Vera Lynn. So it’s not Liam’s fault then. Clear on that?

REMEMBER, THE TORIES GOT US INTO THIS MESS.

Meanwhile the official Opposition in the House of Commons ought to be scoring massive political points against a government which is presenting them with a target the size of a minor planet from a distance of about six inches, But no, that would be far too easy. When it’s not abstaining, Labour prefers to tear itself apart over internal disputes, because there’s only one thing your average Labour MP hates even more than the Tories and that's another of your average Labour MPs. However even in the highly unlikely event that the Labour party was able to get its collective act together, it still wouldn’t be resisting the Tories and their insane Brexit. Because, for reasons which have never been satisfactorily explained, Jeremy Corbyn is every bit as committed to an insane Brexit as Liam Fox is.

REMEMBER, THE TORIES GOT US INTO THIS MESS.

Right now, the only thing keeping Theresa May in power is that her MPs are even more terrified that Jeremy Corbyn might win a snap General Election than they’re afraid of the damage that a chaotic Brexit might wreak. But , in an interesting twist, there are those in the Tory party who are tempted to allow that to happen. A weak and chaotic Corbyn government can take the public flak for a catastrophic Brexit while the Tories and UKIP who inflicted it upon us can blame Labour and blame the EU for the mess that they’ve been instrumental in creating. Then a hard right Tory government could sweep into power a couple of years later and destroy the tattered remnants of the UK’s public services and complete the transformation of the UK into a unitary state with a low wage economy that acts as a tax shelter for the wealthy. There’s your Tory British values for you.

REMEMBER, THE TORIES GOT US INTO THIS MESS.

Now it is possible that none of this will happen. It is possible that everything might turn out just fine. All things are possible. It is theoretically possible that Liam Fox is going to wake up one morning, look himself in the mirror, and suddenly realise that his politics have been based on a selfish mendacity, then he’ll make a public apology and devote the rest of his life to unpaid medical work for a charity. But that’s not likely to happen either.

REMEMBER, THE TORIES GOT US INTO THIS MESS.