Jez offers gravy with Brexit chips
THERE are a few new skills I’ve learned from having three kids. Braiding French plaits (badly), sneezing without weeing, forcing on shrunken football socks... and the eight times table.
But there is one skill even greater than these – feeling comfortable with discord. Because the thing about having three is someone is always going to be disappointed with a decision.
At some point in every scenario someone will invariably strop off shouting: “You are so unfair – you’re the meanest person in the entire world.”
Which is all possibly true. But whatevs...
The last time I tried being popular at home was when Will Young was still in the charts. Instead, I follow the LWO strategy – Least Worst Option.
Let me take you through an example...
Me: “What do you want with your sausages for tea?” Eldest: “Roasties.” Middle: “Chips.” Youngest: “Mash.” Me (in search of the LWO): “I’ll do roast then you can mash them up yourself in the gravy.” Or perhaps... “I’ll do massive great spherical chips, that look a bit like roast.”
Put anything to a vote in our house and there’ll usually be a 48/52 split. But there will also always be an LWO.
Which brings us to Brexit (well, we were always going to get there eventually).
For I actually think Jeremy Corbyn has come up with a pretty decent LWO. What the bulk of British people who voted Leave wanted was to free ourselves from the stranglehold of European bureaucracy, end the undercutting of our wages by the influx of cheap labour, to calm the frenetic pace of change in our communities and to feel something was being done to control our borders.
They were all perfectly reasonable requests.
But 48% of people didn’t agree. They felt the potential risks to jobs and freedom of movement for work and study didn’t make the rupture worthwhile.
No Brexit solution was going to please everyone. And there is no absolute right or absolute wrong for Britain – just different people’s preferences for how the future may or may not impact on their priorities.
But Corbyn’s LWO – membership of a customs unit which will protect jobs but enable us to craft our own trade deals and immigration policy – has merit.
Of course, his opponents disagree. Some say the EU will never allow it.
Corbyn could never please everyone
But they let others do something similar.
Others say it’s purely a cynical move by Labour to topple the Government. Maybe. But even if it is, the plan STILL has merits.
And some say it’s a betrayal of those Labour voters who backed Leave. But Corbyn and co were never going to be able to please everyone. So what they’re serving up is an LWO for all.
Who knows? We may even get to like chips mashed in gravy...