We’ve lost sight of a united Europe W

“LET them eat cake”, dozy MarieAnoinette said of the 18th century Paris poor who had no bread.

Update for 2017: “Let them eat pheasant and partridge”, says wealthy cricket hero Sir Ian Botham. He’s pledged 10,000 game birds shot on his leased North Yorkshire estate to food banks. Good old Beefy.

But don’t worry, you won’t have to pluck and draw them. They’ll be made into pheasant casserole and partridge curry – half a million meals.

Mmmm. Almost worth being poor. But not quite. HEN the Brexit brouhaha began, Theresa May promised the government would not “give a running commentary” on events.

Since then, she and her ministers have talked of little else.

And usually at cross-purposes, so the confused voter doesn’t know if it’s dinner time or Brexit time.

Chancellor Philip Hammond wants a “soft” version of life after divorce from Europe. International Trade Secretary Liam Fox demands the opposite.

Brexit Secretary David Davis offers a compromise, but former leader Lord Hague backs ambitious Phil. Downing Street slaps everybody down, but nobody takes any notice. The truth is that none of them has the faintest idea of what life will look like outside the EU, or what will happen when. But just as nature abhors a vacuum, the politicians have to fill the empty space of their ignorance with speculation, special pleading and sheer fantasy. It would be entertaining if it weren’t so serious. The clock is ticking – only 600 days before we leave – and not even a blueprint on the drawing board. In a week when we remembered Passchendaele, the worst battle of WW1 that claimed half a million lives, we’re losing sight of what first brought Europe together: no more war. That, for a WW2 war baby like me, But just as nature abhors a vacuum, the politicians have to fill the empty space of their ignorance with speculation, special pleading and sheer fantasy. was the most important reason for being part of the EU. An end to brutish bloodletting on battlefields across the continent.

We have lost sight of that vital dimension amid the pointless squabbling by Cabinet ministers. Labour is in no position to offer a lead, because it, too, is divided on the best way out of the post-Referendum debacle.

Jeremy Corbyn wants a clean, total break, his shadow ministers want maximum access to the Single Market and some of his MPs want a second referendum.

Like most of you, I’m only an interested spectator. I don’t have a vote at Westminster, or political clout from bankrolling a party.

But it’s my country, too, and I wish the politicians could start to agree on something, and give a clear lead to the rest of us.

Oh, for a by-election, when they’d all have to come clean on Brexit, and the voters could give a verdict.

A running judgement on their runaway commentary.