Why are we back in no-man’s-land fighting yet another phoney war?
Dear God, please make it stop. I’m not sure about the Prime Minister, but I fear we will all be dead in a ditch if this purgatorial anguish goes on much longer.
I like to think of myself as reasonably well informed about current affairs, but, hand on heart, I have no idea what happened on Super Saturday. None.
Like the rest of the nation I settled down in front of BBC News as a preternaturally patient Huw Edwards explained over and over again the implications of the Letwin Amendment and how it might impact on the Mr Benn Act, and it all kept whizzing straight over the top of my head.
When Letwin was passed (like port, to the Left) I still sat there, stupidly waiting for the vote on the Brexit deal. I was aware that something unexpected happened but I didn’t fully grasp that it meant nothing expected would happen.
Some stentorian voice announced that the meaningful vote had been voided of meaning. Even that nonsensical observation made more sense than what actually occurred, which is to say, nothing. Not a damn thing. Instead we find ourselves Junckering down in no-man’s-land for yet another phoney war between monstrous egos and elected representatives and other elected representatives and one million marching in the street demanding a People’s Vote amid a blizzard of metaphors.
The Prime Minister likened reaching an agreement with the EU to summiting Everest.
Right now it feels as if we are all queuing up in the Death Zone tied to each other, tied to Europe. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
Starved of the oxygen of common sense, the body politic is starting to perish, minute by minute, cell by cell.
Nobody has even noticed that the first casualty, democracy, has long since given up the ghost and hurtled down the mountainside to certain oblivion.
We’ve spent three years blindly trusting politicians to deliver the result of the referendum. I fully admit that I am a passionate Remainer. Or at least was a passionate Remainer. I’m now a passionless, disillusioned husk of a voter who just wants to get this thing – anything – over the line. Was it only last week that Europe’s intractable leaders were glad-handing “greased piglet” Mr Johnson and glibly congratulating one another on a triumph of statecraft? The pound immediately leapt for joy, heading for its best six-day run against the dollar since 1985. Even hatchet-faced Dominic Cummings managed to crack a smile.
But wrangling with Europe over customs and tariffs was a doddle in comparison to persuading the House of Commons to carry out the settled will of the people. The worst aspect is that it’s also bloody impenetrable, no offence Huw.
I am entirely au fait with the reasonable, if inhumane, concept of Schrödinger’s cat. I understand enough about quantum physics to know it is silly and impossible.
But Lord help me, I haven’t got so much as a toehold on what is afoot in this wretched Parliament, brought to its knees by the endless squabbling, wilful obscurantism and petty betrayals.
No wonder the electorate are strung out, angry and exhausted by the endless machinations that are exacerbating deep uncertainty, fostering rancour and causing us to haemorrhage faith in the system and those who run it.
Will Brexit be done and dusted by Hallowe’en? I fear it won’t even be over by Christmas. Truthfully, retrenching in a ditch never sounded so appealing.
Starved of the oxygen of common sense, the body politic is starting to perish, minute by minute, cell by cell