Mr Gove’s jaunty optimism infuriates wailing Remainers
EXAGGERATED aghastness is the factory setting of Establishment MPs at present. They hope that by whipping up a sense of apocalypse – by accentuating negatives and wailing about ‘disgrace’ and our national ‘weakness’ – they can so dispirit us that we finally, whimperingly, accept our continued obeisance to them and their fellow superior mortals in Brussels.
Yesterday’s Commons exchanges brought more of this. The day began with Environment Questions under Michael Gove. Brexiteer Gove’s jaunty optimism infuriates the Jeremiahs of Remain.
How dare he be so upbeat? Does he not see that independence from Jean-Claude Juncker & Co will bring ruin to us bear-skinned savages of the British Isles?
Barry Sheerman (Lab, Huddersfield) thought it ‘a disgrace’ that Mr Gove’s department had not done an ‘ impact assessment’ of Brexit on British farming. Did the Secretary of State not agree?
Mr Gove gave a one-word answer: ‘Nooo.’ Old Sheerman steamed.
Impact assessments are the rage with Remainers. You see, they are written by risk-averse officials loyal to the status quo (i.e. them!). But as Richard Graham (Con, Gloucester) has argued this week, it is hard to assess what Brexit might do to our economy when we don’t know what the Brexit deal will be. Anything until then is, er, a waste of time.
Labour frontbencher David Drew – in private a Eurosceptic good egg – asked Mr Gove funereally if there was ‘anyone’ other than Govey and the Legatum Institute who thinks a free-trade deal with America would be good for British farming. (Legatum is a think-tank whose pro-US libertarian leanings give Europhiles the vapours.) Again, Mr Gove settled for a single word: ‘Yes.’ Mr Drew at least had the decency to laugh.
Sue Hayman, another Labour spokesman, proclaimed that Britain ‘now’ has the second-worst ‘food insecurity’ in Europe. This reflected a ‘shameful increase in hunger and food poverty’.
George Eustice, minister, replied that the Living Costs and Food Survey shows that for the past 20 years, spending by the poor on food has in fact remained constant at some 16 per cent.
David Hanson ( Lab, Delyn) talked lugubriously of ‘ catastrophic consequences’ for farming when we leave the EU. Give that man a leper’s handbell. Others keened about EU ‘convergence uplift’ – which all sounds a bit Barbara Windsor – post-Brexit antipollution laws and post-Brexit protection for cuddly puppies. Brexit puppy killers!
Mr Gove defused that last one by tinkling away about the little rescue dog he and his family have acquired. He certainly did not seem to be a Cruella de Vil but no doubt Chuka Umunna and friends will tell us otherwise.
ANUrgent Question on Mr Trump and Jerusalem brought Emily Thornberry to the despatch box. As at the entrance of any pantomime dame, the skies seemed to darken and the stage boards shuddered.
Few have mastered more expertly than her ladyship Nugee (Miss Thornberry’s strict title) the curling lip, throwaway eyebrows and the note of patrician superiority when talking about Mr Trump or Brexit. On Jerusalem, she said, Mr Trump had made the May Government look ‘like fools – weak, ignored and entirely without influence’. She added: ‘When will they realise that bending over for a bully only encourages their behaviour? What our country needs, and what the world needs, is a British Government prepared to stand up to him!’
Is it not possible that what our country needs is different from what the world might want? Could the realpolitik not be that for a year or so we need to court Mr Trump’s approval of an AngloAmerican free-trade deal?
But not a single MP said that. Instead they just trotted out denunciations of bozo Donald and his administration. The SNP’s Chris Law said the ‘reckless and divisive’ Trump would not be welcome to visit Britain. Nusrat Ghani (Con, Wealden) called the US’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital ‘ignorant’ and ‘a hostile act’. Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt barely demurred.
Who cares about our national interest when there is posturing to be done?