A superlative speech – even if no one in the House could understand it

WATCHING Labour MPS listen to Sir Keir Starmer was like watching the audience at a literary festival listen to a reading of TS Eliot. All were nodding, frowning, and wearing expressions of profound and appreciative solemnity. Those who had beards to finger did so. The rest made do with their chins. Their silence was total – but you could hear what they were thinking.

This is magnificent. Masterly. Superlative. Transcendent.

If only I had the first idea what the man was on about.

Sir Keir, the shadow secretary of state for Brexit, was speaking about the EU (Withdrawal) Bill. He was not speaking, however, in the manner of a politician. He was speaking in the manner of a barrister – which is, as it happens, what he used to be. So instead of chest-thumping rhetoric, simplistic sound bites and sniggering put-downs, he was engaged in a forensic, syllable-by-syllable dissection of the Bill. The case he made against it was dizzyingly detailed, voluminously erudite and remorselessly verbose. He deployed dramatic pauses. He dismissed objections with withering irony. From time to time, he cast a meaningful glance to his side, as if to a jury.

Any moment now, I thought, he’s going to forget where he is, and say “M’lud” instead of “Mr Speaker”.

When Sir Keir finally resumed his seat, Labour MPS cheered – and one or two, in rather unparliamentary fashion, applauded. No doubt about it: they’d loved his argument. But I’d be impressed if any of them were able to repeat it.

Still, the essence of it was clear enough: this Bill, in the eyes of Sir Keir, was “an unprecedented power grab” by the Government, which would enable it to “sidestep parliamentary scrutiny” and rewrite laws as it saw fit. Chris Leslie (Lab, Nottingham East) was horrified. Imagine, he gasped, if such power lay in the hands of “the honourable member for the 18th century”. This was a swipe at Tory arch-traditionalist Jacob Rees-mogg. The Speaker swiftly upbraided him. “The honourable member for NE Somerset,” he pointed out, “has often been known to observe that the 18th century is altogether too recent for him.”

Labour MPS weren’t alone in denouncing the bill. The Evening Standard, noted Stephen Timms (Lab, East Ham), had accused Theresa May of seeking “rule by decree”.

“I don’t read the Evening Standard, and it sounds like with good reason,” sniffed David Davis, the Brexit Secretary. “If I’m going to take lectures on rule by decree, it won’t be from the editor of the Evening Standard.”

Tories guffawed.

The editor of the Evening Standard is of course that scrupulously impartial observer of Brexit, Mr George Osborne. If you needed a symbol of the revolution in British politics over the past 18 months, there it is. The views of George Osborne, endorsed by Labour, and rubbished by Tories.