Politics and pints fuel debate at the other Chequers
IT IS 3pm on Friday and the most important person in the building has declared: ‘I am in charge, so I make the decisions.’
But after two years of complex Brexit negotiations and several hours of talks at her country residence, these simple words did not come from embattled Theresa May at Chequers – but from Dritan Lani, landlord of the nearby Chequers Inn.
Mr Lani, 49, who has owned the ‘other Chequers’ for eight years, explains: ‘I own this pub, and if customers suggest things, I take them on board – but I make the decisions. It is the same with Europe, Britain should be making its own decisions.’
He says of Mrs May: ‘I would put my foot down. I would just walk away with a no deal.
‘I think she needs support from everyone – she has a job to do, and we have just got to let her get on with it and do the job. I believe in her and I want to see what she comes up with.’
Located in the rolling countryside less than five miles from Chequers, some of the pub regulars live so close to the PM’s retreat that they are regularly required to fill in security forms.
But like Mrs May and her Ministers, leave-voter Mr Lani has an abundance of surprising opinions and clashing views among his most loyal customers.
Holding a less sympathetic view towards Mrs May is John Richmond, 75, who said as he sipped his pint in the sunshine: ‘She means well – she tries – but she is not a Maggie. I mean, Maggie wouldn’t have stood for all this messing about now, would she?
Basically, I voted Brexit to get shot of so many immigrants coming into the place but now it looks like we’re going to be stuck with them anyway.’
Meanwhile, in the ‘remain corner’ are retired teachers Kate 66, and Pete Millins, 67, from Amersham. Mrs Millins said: ‘When the news about Brexit came through, we almost just sat and cried.
‘We couldn’t stop exclaiming in horror, “What have we landed our children with?”
‘It was all so ill-thought-out. The public voted on lies, NHS money – you just think, how are they allowed to do that?’
Mr Millins added: ‘In my mind, people had been voting not on knowledge, but on fear that had been planted by third parties.’
He believes that Mrs May was ‘stuffed by that stupid Election she had’ but should now be ‘stamping her authority – she is in charge’.