REBELS WITHOUT A CLUE

SEEKING refuge from the Brexit debacle, I decided to lose myself in an old Hollywood movie — The Candidate, starring Robert Redford, made in 1972.

Redford plays an idealistic young man persuaded to run for the U.S. Senate. Yes, I know it might seem somewhat perverse attempting to escape from politics by watching a film about, er, politics.

But in order to understand the present, it always helps if you look to the past. And though The Candidate is set in California, the basic principles of politics are universal.

Redford’s character starts out determined to pursue a new kind of politics, one which listens to ordinary people, addresses their concerns and improves their lives.

Inevitably, as his campaign progresses, he gets swallowed up by the machine, and starts parroting scripted soundbites and cliches, and cutting deals with vested interests in exchange for their support. Then again, don’t they all? Let’s be charitable and accept that most MPs went into politics with the best of intentions, determined to serve their constituents and keep their manifesto promises.

Sadly, with a few honourable exceptions, they become corrupted by proximity to power. And the more time they spend at Westminster, the further they move away from the people they are paid to represent.

Eventually, they end up treating voters with contempt. Which is where we are right now.

LOOK,

I don’t want to keep banging on about Brexit. I’m as sick of the whole business as most of you. But the shenanigans in Parliament are not just about Britain’s future relationship with the EU, they go to the very heart of what passes for our democracy these days.

Whether, like me, you’re a gungho Brexiteer or a full-on federast, is irrelevant. The behaviour of most of our elected representatives has been an absolute disgrace.

Just consider that photograph of them falling all over each other to get into the voting lobby to reject Theresa May’s risible ‘deal’. It made me want to puke. They all seemed hugely pleased with themselves, without a thought as to how it appeared to those of us who live outside the bubble.

Most of them couldn’t wait to get in front of the nearest microphone or television camera so they could spout their selfserving platitudes.

In total, 432 MPs voted against May’s deal — which, curiously, is almost exactly the number of seats Leave would have gained if the referendum had been a general election.

It would have been considered a landslide. Yet from the moment the Brexit result was announced, the majority of MPs have been plotting to overturn it.

Their promises to respect the outcome, to leave the Single Market and the Customs Union, their votes to implement Article 50, which will take us out of the EU, all count for nothing. They lied to us. They painted themselves into a corner and then walked out through the paint. They have declared war on the very people who put them into office. And for what? How many honourable members really went into politics determined to surrender their duties to an unelected, anti-democratic foreign protection racket?

I’m not going to revisit all the arguments about why Mother Theresa’s withdrawal agreement is a crock. What else should we have expected? She’s a Remainer whose heart was never in leaving the EU.

Her repeated attempts to force her sell- out deal through the Commons is not, as some might claim, an admirable display of principled resilience.

It is evidence of bovine intransigence, born of intellectual inadequacy, a complete lack of imagination and non-existent negotiating skills, coupled with an unwarranted sense of entitlement. As I’m sure I don’t need to remind you, I never thought she was up to the job in the first place.

If she’d had a shred of decency she’d have resigned after the fiasco of calling an unnecessary general election in which she contrived to lose her parliamentary majority.

FEW

MPs come out of this well, especially not the shambolic Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a serial opponent of the EU who is now talking about locking Britain into a Customs Union in perpetuity and flatly refuses to take part in talks aimed at ending the impasse.

Yesterday, hardline Remainers started stamping their little bootees and threatening to resign if we leave with no deal.

Meanwhile, the Tory leaders of the official Leave campaign are now parlaying their positions in pursuit of political advancement. I told you before Christmas that Boris was up to something when he lost a bit of timber and had his hair cut.

It wasn’t just because he’s got a young bird in tow. He still thinks, in his words, the ball is going to emerge from the back of the scrum and his Churchillian sense of destiny will be fulfilled.

Michael Gove, who knifed Boris after the referendum, has his eye on No 10, too.

How else to explain his backing for May’s deal, which betrays the very Brexit for which he campaigned so effectively?

Gove’s speech during this week’s confidence debate was superficially impressive, but it was aimed purely at bolstering his prime ministerial credentials.

This wasn’t a vote of confidence in Mrs May, it was a vote of no confidence in Corbyn. And if all you have to offer is a speech stating that the Prime Minister is not as rubbish as the Leader of the Opposition, however true, you’re clutching at straws.

Those Tories who fantasise about Labour deposing Corbyn should be careful what they wish for. Any halfpresentable successor to Corbyn would wipe the floor with them.

How the hell did we get into this unholy mess? Only the MPs who created it can get us out of it, yet few show any signs of softening their opposition to Brexit or respecting the democratically expressed will of the British people. If anything, their stance is hardening as they sense they can force a second referendum and halt Brexit altogether.

Quite how they’re going to achieve that isn’t apparent. But it won’t stop them trying. They all think they’re starring in their own movie.

At the end of The Candidate, after he’s won the Senate election, Redford’s character turns to his campaign manager and asks forlornly: ‘What do we do now?’

Precisely. No one at Westminster seems to have the faintest idea. We are all going to hell in a handcart.