Brexit needs trust – not soap stars’ cheap shots
DANNY Dyer, what a ledge. You must have seen it by now – the moment t he EastEnders hard-man cuts through all the Westminster waffle and tells it the way it is.
Brexit has become a ‘ mad riddle’. Or, to quote Dyer accurately: ‘ I haven’t got a clue. No one knows what it is; it’s like this mad riddle that no one knows what it is, right?’
Then he takes aim at David Cameron. Our former Prime Minister should be held to account for his Brexit policy. Or to again translate into Dyer-speak: ‘ How comes he can scuttle off? He called all this on. Where is he? He’s in Europe, in Nice, with his trotters up, yeah. Where is the geezer? I think he should be held account for it.’
At which point Dyer delivers a final succinct analysis of the Cameron legacy. ‘ So what’s happened to that t*** David Cameron who called it on?’ he asks rhetorically. Although actually it’s not that succinct, because for good measure he decides to repeat the expletive. ‘T***,’ he says to no one in particular. And then settles back.
Within moments this microtirade had become British social media’s Gettysburg Address. Liberal commentators rushed to their keyboards to anoint Dyer the new people’s champion. Conservative commentators gushed at his brutally brilliant take- down of posh- boy Cameron, at least until they realised he was also attacking their beloved Brexit.
BUT then they shrugged, and embraced him anyway. Good for Danny. Another one in the eye for the entitled political elite. Except it wasn’t. The person Dyer had really poked in the eye was the British voter. And the laudatory response to his simplistic, patronising, pound- shop Dick Van Dyke routine underlined why British politics is currently heading to hell in a handcart.
Over the past month, a new self-reinforcing narrative has emerged from both sides of the Brexit debate. On the Remain side, it’s the They Woz Duped premise. The people who backed Brexit basically didn’t know what they were doing. The issue was so complex, the arguments deployed for and against so superficial, the votes of the 52 per cent were effectively cast in ignorance. The majority were bamboozled by Dyer’s ‘mad riddle’.
Then there is the Brexiteers’ submission. They Woz Robbed is the growing cry. This contends the will of the people is slowly being usurped. Those fiendish, duplicitous politicians – just like that t*** Cameron – are up their tricks again. ‘We are being boiled like frogs in a pan’ is how the Leavers like to frame it. Slowly poached by Theresa May and her Remain- heavy Cabinet, who plan to water down Brexit until it is an insignificant gruel, then sell it to the electorate as the best deal they could get. At which point, Mrs May will presumably take her own Roger Vivier clad trotters, rest them on a sun-drenched European lounger, and laugh maniacally at the delivery of her cunning soft-Brexit masterplan.
Two contrasting but ultimately complementary visions of our political future. Complementary because they are essentially underpinned by the same conceit. Namely that Brexit is a mess, and a mess that is all the politicians’ fault.
It isn’t true. But that doesn’t stop it being reinforced by useful idiots like Danny Dyer, who recognise a populist bandwagon when they see one and are desperate to drag their laddish posteriors aboard.
It is not the politicians who are to blame for Brexit, it is the voters who are to blame for Brexit. Or rather, it is the voters who are responsible for Brexit, because at the moment it’s still unclear whether our decision to leave the EU will be viewed as a moment of monumental national folly or signature national wisdom.
What we can say for certain, is the path we followed to Brexit is not the one painted by Danny Dyer, or fundamentalists in either the Remain or Leave camps. David Cameron did not, as populist wisdom would have it, create the Brexit mess, then do a runner. He recognised – correctly – that our politics was underpinned by a false, decaying consensus.
On Europe, on immigration, on the relationship between the elected and their electors, the status quo had become unsustainable. So he pledged a referendum in his 2015 manifesto, won on it, respected the result, (despite the predictions of his enemies), held the referendum, respected that result (again, despite the predictions of his enemies), and stepped down.
THESE were not the actions of a venal chancer, but a politician who honestly tried and failed to wrangle forces so violent they currently threaten to tear Western democracy apart.
But that reality doesn’t fit in with the pitch of the Bar-Room Philosopher Laureat, nor the fiction being peddled by the Brexit true-believers and truehaters. Speaking to people in the run-up to this week’s latest make-or-break Chequers summit, both sides were remarkably open about their strategies. The Remainers want to turn the Leavers’ tactics back on t hemselves. They wish to make Brexit a product of the entitled Westminster class. ‘Boris. Gove. Rees-Mogg. They pulled the wool over your eyes, then stitched the whole thing up among themselves over cigars and brandy.’
Meanwhile the Brexiteers are aiming for a ‘half-baked’ Brexit. They want to leave Chequers with the job half done. ‘We are so nearly there,’ they want to be able to say when the deal is finally delivered. ‘But what we need to do is make sure that we have a Government and Prime Minister committed to seeing the job through. Now it needs Michael/Boris/Jacob to finish the task and embed Brexit for a generation.’
Again, both narratives are false. Theresa May and her Ministers are not trying to dupe or betray anyone. They are seeking to deliver a complex geopolitical separation in a way that respects the will of a deeply divided nation.
The divide between governors and governed will not be bridged by continued infantilisation of the voters. The path we are on was set by us, the British people. The referendum result was close, but it was clear and it was fair. And we cannot, as a nation, shirk accountability for what comes next.
Brexit is not Danny Dyer’s ‘mad riddle’. It is our riddle, one we placed before the politicians, along with an instruction to solve it.
Danny Dyer can sit with his trotters up, berating the despised political class. But the rest of us have given the Prime Minister and her colleagues their orders. We now need to give them the time and space to carry them out.
AS THIS week’s Chequers awayday beckons, Downing Street have placed Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson on what one official described to me as ‘suicide watch’. According to a No 10 insider: ‘Everyone has been told to keep a close eye on Boris, his advisers, and who they’re speaking to. Boris has humiliated himself with his surrender over Heathrow and there’s a feeling he might be preparing to make a dramatic gesture in an attempt to get himself back into leadership contention.’ Watch this space. GERMANY’S World Cup exit finally bridged the Tory Brexit divide. Tory Leavers in the Strangers’ Bar were surprised to see Remainer Ed Vaizey applauding South Korea’s victory. ‘I can do Brexity,’ he said. ‘Any time a European team goes out, we cheer, right?’