Faked deadline is cheap trick
It might be one of the oldest tricks in the book but it is still a trick and it still works…sometimes.
It didn’t work for Boris Johnson yesterday certainly but the false deadline and the ticking clock can often get a deal done for dodgy salesmen and unwary customers.
Of course, it might really be the only one left in stock or the price might definitely be going up on Monday but, more often than not, the dramatic rush for a decision is a wheeze, a ruse to rush buyers into a decision before they have a chance to kick the tyres, check the small print or properly read a withdrawal agreement.
It has been 40 months since Britain voted to leave the European Union and our MPs had fewer than four days to study the detail and implications of our proposed departure.
Sadly, predictably, most of the short time available to turn Boris Johnson’s deal upside down and shake it was squandered. Westminster does what Westminster loves to do, turn a crisis into a drama: who’s got the numbers, who’s in and who’s out, and so it went on and, interminably, on. One MP was doing a little bit more than gossiping and number-crunching, however, and Oliver Letwin should be applauded for thinking of a way to put the brakes on.
It cannot be right that such an important decision is taken under the gun, with a deadline looming. Every MP who stood up yesterday and said this deal was substantially worse than that secured by Theresa May only made the point.
Meanwhile, the Chancellor insists there is no need for detailed analysis from the government about the possible economic impact of the PM’s deal because, wait for it, it is “good for the fabric of our democracy”. Well, that’s all right, then. Only, it’s not.
Whatever we think of Brexit, however we voted, no matter how fed up we are with the whole sorry saga, to make such a generation-defining decision because we simply want it over is not the act of a grown-up nation.
So it goes on. Maybe not for long, if our Prime Minister has his way. Possibly a lot longer, if he does not.
Whatever happens next, to rush Britain into a decision to hit his own artificial deadline, to bring MPs in on a Saturday to fuel the sense of drama and history being made, to attempt to bounce the country into a deal without knowing what it might cost, was a cheap trick.
It did not deserve to succeed.