Pickford saves May.. for now
AND the winner is... Theresa May. When Jordan Pickford sent the dirty, cheating Colombians packing on Monday night, the voodoo of penalty shoot-outs was lifted from English shoulders.
Relief shuddered through the Brexit nation – from Pickford’s County Durham to Downing Street. Finally, May had a turn of luck. When your time in politics’ top job is measured from the door opening in the morning to putting the red box away at night, every day is an extra-time thriller. Luck is immeasurable.
Gareth Southgate’s young and modest team – a new model army for England abroad – just bought May another week during one of her roughest patches of water as Prime Minister.
Football might not come home but it will see her through this weekend.
With anticipation of Saturday’s World Cup quarter-final against Sweden at fever pitch (down south, it’s below the 55th parallel) virtually nothing from today’s Brexit showdown with her Cabinet at Chequers will make it on to the front pages tomorrow.
Sunday’s news agenda will be about England winning or losing. Over barbecues and goal replays, what impact will leaked read-outs from warring Tory politicians have?
By the time weekday service is resumed on Monday, the focus moves on to the NATO Summit, the Brexit White Paper and President Donald Trump’s imminent visit.
Seriously, the three lions of Brexit – Michael Gove, Boris Johnson and David Davis – could all take the long walk out the gravel driveway of Chequers together and the real Three Lions – Harry Kane, Jamie Vardy and Jesse Lingard – will play them off the news agenda.
The Cabinet Brexiteers will convince themselves the time is not right, just yet, to storm out over May’s Brexit compromises.
Like the one on the yellow brick road, I suspect these lions lack the courage.
Satisfying no one, May’s new plan is supposed to be a third way between her old customs partnership and the Brexiteers’ “maximum facilitation”.
Under a facilitated customs partnership (I know, the title is enough) the United Kingdom would collect tariffs on behalf of the EU and hand them back but would have the ability to set its own tariffs for the rest of the world.
It won’t fly, and if it does it will be shot down by Brussels 20 minutes after the Cabinet meeting ends but it might fudge the warring cabinet until October. By then, the UK must reach an accord with the European Union, for any deal to be ratified by the European Parliament and by member states, as well as the Westminster parliament.
Because there can be no hard border in Ireland, May has guaranteed that there has to be close regulatory and customs alignment with the rest of the EU now, and perhaps forever. In other words, soft Brexit.
Unless there is a coup.
The favoured Brexiteer is Gove, Johnson has “no mates” right now and the favoured Remainer, if he can be called that, is Sajid Javid.
Brexit is on the agenda at Chequers but every move, comment and nudge across the table will be calibrated around who the next leader might be and how these two play. Ridiculously, the economy comes second place.
By the time Ministers leave Chequers, Britain will be just 266 days from Brexit but May will have survived another week in office.
If things go well on Saturday, and fortunes on the football field affect the political weather, she will still have everything to play for.
Except for one thing. The England squad lifted only one curse on Monday.
Many Scots will be clinging to the hope that Harold Wilson’s maxim still holds true – England only win the World Cup under a Labour government.
YOU can always rely on the SNP’s Angus MacNeil, left, to ask the Brexit questions the rest of us were afraid to ask.
This week it was: “To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what steps he is taking to ensure that florists maintain an uninterrupted supply of flowers from Europe after the UK leaves the EU.”
To our immense relief, he was assured the bouquets will get through.