Odour of May’s speech hung around like week-old kedgeree
sees the Commons remain an arena of wilt and decay
WESTMINSTER has undergone a welcome transformation since the weekend. The cherry blossom in St James’s Park is suddenly in full bloom. The grand old Thames, last week an uninviting swell of slime and silt, now dapples pleasingly in the sunlight. Through my window in New Palace yard seeps that heavenly waft of freshly-cut grass.
At the risk of sounding syrupy, it as though central London has dozily awoken from its long winter slumber and has begun dabbing on its springtime powder puff.
The House of Commons, by sharp contrast, remains a murky arena of wilt and decay.
There is vinegary air about the place. Acrid. Sour. If this Parliament were an English garden, it would be overgrown with nettles and brambles.
Once again, yesterday, the Prime Minister arrived to update MPs over her progress on Brexit. ‘Progress’, of course, is much too generous a word.
With four days until Britain was meant to leave the EU, we are no closer to departing then we were at Christmas.
Mrs May now receives the sort of welcome to the dispatch box that greets fans of ‘No one likes us, we don’t care’ Millwall FC. Opposition members shake their heads at her in disbelief. They roll their eyeballs maniacally.
‘Disgrace!’ ‘Resign!’ The most piquant heckles, I should point out, usually come from women.
Some of worst perpetrators, such as Jess Phillips ( Lab, Birmingham yardley) and Paula Sherriff (Lab, Dewsbury) are also among those who accused Mrs May of inciting abuse towards MPs by blaming them for not voting for her Brexit deal.
Wobbly-lipped Ms Sheriff rose to her feet yesterday and theatrically demanded the PM ‘dial down the hate.’ Ah, yes, the odour from Mrs May’s televised ‘blame-game’ broadcast hung around the Commons like week-old kedgeree.
Amid this foul temper, party colleagues openly attacked one another.
European Reform Group hardnut Mark Francois (Con, Rayleigh and Wickford) was barracked by colleague James Cartlidge (Con, South Suffolk).
Labour benches hissed when their Eurosceptic colleague Kate Hoey (Lab, Vauxhall) spoke up for a No Deal Brexit. Usually genteel Crispin Blunt (Con, Reigate) claimed Mrs May’s unwillingness to consider that option was ‘the most shameful surrender by a British leader
since 1942’. The closest the House came to uniting was when Ian Blackford, the SNP’s Westminster leader, complained that if his party continued to be ignored by the Government, ‘we may as well all go home’. Welcome cheers all round.
As for Mrs May’s ‘ progress update’, there will be no third meaningful vote this week, she announced, because there was insufficient support.
Just how stuffed she would have been became apparent moments later when the DUP’s Nigel Dodds stood up and tore chunks out her for accepting an extension to Article 50 in Brussels last week. Judging by the way Dodds spat his words, she may have lost him for good.
For all the acidity in the atmosphere, the PM seemed surprisingly relaxed. Perhaps it was the weekend Chequers air. At one point, she was challenged by Chris Leslie (Ind, Nottingham East) for using her mobile phone while he was asking a question. Mrs May apologised, jovially explaining she’d been doing ‘ a bit of female multi-tasking’. There followed a lengthy debate before MPs voted on whether to take control of Brexit – a measure which passed by 329 votes to 302. Mrs May had already warned that she might chose to ignore the result anyway.
Contributions, which continued long into the evening, were true to character. Anna Soubry ( Ind, Browtowe) hammy and raucous. Dominic Grieve (Con, though says ‘he’s never been more ashamed’ to be a Tory, Beaconsfield) legalistic and self- satisfied. Yvette Cooper (Lab, Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) nannyish and as patronising as teacher offering a pupil a ‘well-done’ lollipop.
Around and around we go. oh, to think back to those days when we all naively assumed Brexit was just a date in the March 2019 calendar. Something that would just happen like the spring equinox.
Instead, it has become a ceaseless process, a farcical fandango played out daily in the Commons with no end in sight.