Deluded hardliners have held May back for far too long
THIS week’s slew of resignations by hard-Brexiteers in the ruling British Tory party – six in total at time of writing – were inevitable, and necessary.
As soon as their ‘cake-andeat-it’ delusion of Brexit was laid bare for the folly that it is, the resigners cut and ran.
UK Prime Minister Theresa May had been held back for too long by – in David Davis’s own words – “a devil of a sword of Damocles”. She has spent the past two years bowing to the whims and ideology of hardline Brexiteers – or the ‘Brexit Taliban’ as they’re fast becoming known.
Every move she made was with them in mind, and the sole priority of preventing a break-up of her cabinet – a group beset by disorder since the general election last June.
For now, it appears that Mrs May has finally set upon a path of formally acknowledging the fallacy of Brexit as conjured up by Fox, Johnson, Davis et al. It had been factored in that she would shed this cabal of ‘crazies’ as one official described them to the Irish Independent.
The idea that the UK could assert itself as Global Britain, while accessing parts of the EU’s single market for goods by circumventing its fundamental principles and rules while all other 27 member states adhere to them, was completely irreconcilable.
This unvarnished reality now might finally become a feature in British government policy judging from the short document released after a day of talks at Chequers last Friday.
Instead of recognising this and working alongside the UK prime minister in the national interest, the hardliners chose mutiny and more chaos. As intelligent operators, fully aware of how the EU works, they knew the limitations of their objectives. Mr Johnson is a former Brussels-based journalist and Mr Davis, while he was Brexit secretary,
his influence had been seriously diminished by the highly competent UK official Ollie Robbins. They pursued their paralysing policies in spite of the potential damage to the UK economy, not to mention the stability of their government.
As for Trade Secretary Liam Fox (inset), one Tory insider told the Irish Independent: “I’ve stopped believing sense will prevail, especially when you have a trade secretary who ignores modern trade dynamics.”
First we had Mr Johnson say the EU could “whistle” for the money it was legally obliged to hand over. Not long after, he admitted this was non-negotiable and a figure of around €50bn was arrived at. Mr Davis attempted to undermine the backstop agreement on a BBC show within 48 hours of it being settled on. Since then, the UK has given written and verbal guarantees that a legally binding backstop will be produced in time for the deadline of the Withdrawal Agreement – the terms and conditions in which the UK divorces itself as a member of the EU club.
In every instance where the British government has acquiesced it is not because of weakness, nor the unreasonable dominance of the EU 27, but because the penny has dropped that their narrative was pure fantasy.