Old liverspot Clarke forgets history as he pooh-poohs the people
OF all the powdery potatoes who wanted to block the EU referendum result, none was more roasted in gravyish oil, more basted in self-importance, than Ken Clarke. For years the old liverspot (Con, Rushcliffe), who nowadays wears the band of his trousers some inches above the navel, has been given a gentle ride. It has become poor form to take a pop at him. He wears suede shoes, drinks beer, likes jazz. He also recently lost his wife, and that quite properly makes us feel sorry for him.
But his patronising pomposity yesterday was worthy of a majordomo in the court of the pre-revolution Bourbons.
Pooh-poohing Brexit, he said the Government should bring a White Paper (ie setting out detailed proposals for legislation) before it even started to extract us from the EU. Deciding such matters was up to the Commons, he claimed. He deplored – this former member of a Thatcher Cabinet! – the tendency of Cabinets to roll over and do what a bossy prime minister wanted.
He compared Theresa May’s behaviour to that of Tony Blair when he took us to war in Iraq. And he claimed that before the referendum, the ‘serious arguments’ he had made had not been reported. See? You, the little people, might have voted differently had you only heard the ‘serious’ arguments made by runny-Camembert Kenneth.
MPs were taking part in a Labour debate which had been hijacked by No 10 and effectively turned into a show of hands for cracking on with Brexit. Yikes. That wasn’t what Labour wanted at all.
THE Opposition’s case had been opened by Sir Keir Starmer, Shadow Brexit Secretary. Humourless Sir Keir was once director of public prosecutions but he is no parliamentary orator.
Blinkily hesitant, he lacks the personality to over-ride heckles and respond winningly to interventions. He is worse at a despatch box than Chris Grayling, a sentence I never thought I would write.
Sir Keir kept demanding (perhaps 50 times) ‘a plan’ from the Government. Crispin Blunt (Con, Reigate), ex-Army, used the military dictum that ‘no plan survives engagement with the enemy’. Uproar! Blairite women sucked in their cheeks and squawked ‘oooh, he called the EU our enemy!’ Sir Keir gave Mr Blunt a moist lecture about language. Senior Labour MPs Pat McFadden and Andy Burnham later denounced Mr Blunt for using the word ‘enemy’. Oh for God’s sake! He had only used a well-known old saw.
David Davis, Brexit Secretary, said the House would be given its say but the Government would not ‘telegraph’ its detailed intentions to the EU before negotiations.
To do that would damage the national interest. Interesting support came from Oliver Letwin (Con, W Dorset), previously a Cameroon Europhile. Ed Miliband (Lab, Doncaster N) argued that John Major laid down detailed plans before Maastricht. ‘Yes!’ said Letwin, ‘and it was a catastrophe!’
Anna Soubry (Con, Broxtoweby-Brussels) twitched.
MIKE Gapes (Lab, Ilford S) thought it a ‘democratic outrage’ the Government was being secretive. James Cartlidge (Con, S Suffolk), previously a Remainer, pointed out that it was standard business-negotation tactics to keep your options broad.
After an unusually fiery speech from Sir Bill Cash (Con, Stone), Mr Clarke claimed that Eurosceptic Sir Bill never accepted the 1975 referendum on Europe.
Sir Bill flattened Mr Clarke by saying that in 1975 he had in fact been an Inner. Bernard Jenkin, chairman of the public administration committee, hinted that the meddling judiciary might need reforming.
Tom Brake, for the Lib Dems, said he would not support triggering Article 50 because it was a ‘parliamentary stitch-up’. As so often in politics, you should believe the exact opposite. Brake wants to use Parliament to prevent the voters’ verdict being enacted.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (Con, NW Somerset) said the House should obey its ‘liege lords, the British people’.
And Michael Gove (Con, Surrey Heath) did a comprehensive demolition job on the woeful Starmer, calling his speech ‘40 minutes of pious vapory, a hole in the air masquerading as an argument’.