The day the planets didn’t quite align for the Prime Minister…
She still couldn’t answer the question. A whole day after it was first asked, she still couldn’t do it. “If there was another EU referendum now, I know I would vote Remain,” hooted the SNP’S Ian Blackford at PMQS. “Why hasn’t the Prime Minister been straightforward about how she would vote?”
Theresa May hopped to her feet. “There is no second referendum,” she squawked. “The people of the United Kingdom voted, and we will be leaving the European Union!”
To judge from her bewildered frown, Mrs May can’t see why this question matters. But it does – for the simple reason that Mrs May is Prime Minister. She’s the ultimate insider. She knows better than the rest of us how her team’s talks with the EU are really going. She knows better than the rest of us what her team’s chances of success are. She has access to information about Brexit that the rest of us haven’t. So if, 16 months into the job, she still can’t say she’d vote for it ….
Well. It doesn’t suggest she has much faith in the people whose job it is to make Brexit work. Namely: her, and her government.
Despite the PM’S discomfort, Jeremy Corbyn chose not to ask her the same question – mainly, I suspect, because he would not want to be asked it himself. Mr Corbyn, let’s not forget, was a Eurosceptic for 40 years; only when he became leader of a party whose membership is overwhelmingly Europhile did he decide he supported the EU after all.
For some reason, though, Labour’s Remain campaign lacked the irrepressible vigour of Mr Corbyn’s general election campaign and his two leadership campaigns. At one point, in fact, he even went on holiday.
This, it seems, is British politics in 2017: a woman who secretly thinks Brexit’s bad versus a man who secretly thinks it’s great.
Rather than Europe, Mr Corbyn asked Mrs May about welfare reform. “What planet is she on?” he snorted.
The PM ignored this taunt, but it must have rankled, because 25 minutes later she finally responded. “The Leader of the Opposition asked me what planet I was on,” she scoffed, suddenly. “Well, we all know what planet he and his shadow chancellor [John Mcdonnell] are on. It’s Planet Venezuela!” To be fair to Mrs May, we have all, at one time or another, found ourselves blurting out what we feel sure is a witty retort, only to realise, the instant it leaves our lips, that it makes no sense.
The embarrassment plagues us, and at night, as we lie sleepless in bed, we replay the moment, desperately trying to work out what we should have said. “Yes, we all know what planet the Leader of the Opposition is on: Earth, the planet with Venezuela on it!
“No. Hang on ….”