HE TROD REMAINERS’ DIGNITY INTO THE DUST LIKE AN OLD FAG END
ON a day when two of Leave’s bolshier buccaneers paraded their contempt for a parliamentary select committee, the Commons flirted with, then backed down from, banjaxing Brexit.
In the final minutes of a hot-and-bovvered debate about Brexit, the House supported the Government in exchange for opaque concessions from ministers.
The morning had brought lowering scenes at the Culture select committee, where Nigel Farage’s supporter Arron Banks and his inky-haired sidekick Andy Wigmore openly mocked the Remainer MPs who were trying to skewer them. Have civilian witnesses at a Commons committee ever been so blithely disrespectful?
The MPs hoped to pierce the duo on alleged links with Russia. Messrs Banks and Wigmore, revelling in their platform, responded by highlighting MPs’ own dubious behaviour – a freebie at a Chelsea football match, drunkenness, reported bullying, etc. The spectacle ended with Mr Banks telling them to get lost – he was off to lunch. Parliamentary dignity was ground in the dust like an old fag end.
It felt wrong. But when a Parliament threatens to block the biggest vote in our history, what can you expect?
In the Commons, Mrs May’s grovelling to Europhiles was evident before our eyes. Solicitor-General Robert Buckland swivelled at the despatch box to offer pro-Brussels Dominic Grieve meaningful talks. Their exchanges became so self-absorbed that the Speaker told Mr Buckland to speak to the House as a whole.
Government Chief Whip Julian Smith was to be seen among the Tory backbenches, begging with Europhile rebels. Mr Smith moved with liquid nonchalance.
He lifted his eyebrows, smiled with what he hoped was a shrewd innocence, and leaned so far into colleagues’ ears, it was as though he was going to lick the wax in their lugholes. We could see him wend his way – with a ‘scuse me, Percy, sorry to disturb you’ – to where the rebels glowered. He beckoned a Grieve munchkin, Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon), and murmured. Neighbouring MPs eavesdropped like mad.
THENMr Smith trolleyed silently down to the front bench, to crouch low in front of Mr Buckland and Theresa May. The Prime Minister, jacketed in pea-soup green, computed the news from Aix and seemed content. Back up in the Europhiles’ corner, half-French Grieve, le Duc d’Autosatisfaction, slowly crossed his legs and at brushed lint from his suit. Beside him: not one but two mobile telephones. One kept clear for special friends?
The debate had been opened by Brexit Secretary David Davis, who ran over the old lines that the referendum result must be respected. Amazing that that should still need to be said. Had it been Mr Davis who offered assurances to Mr Grieve, they would possibly have been rejected.
But Buckland is a lawyer and was once pro-Remain. Grieve and fellow Europhile Kenneth Clarke (Con, Rushcliffe) find it hard to be rude to a fellow lawyer. Ditto Anna Soubry (Con, Broxtowe). She said she loved Mr Buckland! But Ma Soubry, these days as overwound as the rubber band on a schoolboy’s balsa propeller plane, claimed to be disgusted by the ‘horse-trading’. ‘This has got to stop. It is unseemly,’ she cried, eyes swelling.
Other MPs’ eyes just rolled. Brexiteer Sir Edward Leigh (Con, Gainsborough), with animation, told the House ‘ don’t stand against the will of the people’. John Mann (Lab, Bassetlaw), similarly, said Leave voters in Labour seats did not wish to see their decision overturned by the unelected Lords. All this was watched from the gallery by some of those peers, mouldering federasts such as Lord Davies of Stamford and former MEP the Duke of Wellington.
Philip Lee (Con, Bracknell), who had quit ministerial office to rebel, watched that rebellion wither and started to look even more melancholy. He spoke huskily of ‘my own integrity’. One fears it may have been a fruitless sacrifice. For as Charlie Elphicke (Con, Dover) put it, ‘the voters are my masters’. Not until MPs accept that will the likes of Arron Banks treat them with respect.