24 October 2019
Really, Sir Oliver?
Surely not!
By John Watson
When Horace wrote “Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus” (mountains are in labour, a ridiculous mouse will be born) he was borrowing from Aesop to illustrate a general point about works which promise much but deliver little in the end. He could have been specifically addressing last Saturday’s proceedings in the House of Commons. It was the first weekend sitting for 37 years. It was billed as the decider on whether Mr Johnston’s agreement with the EU should be accepted or not. In the end, all we had was a procedural amendment tabled by Sir Oliver Letwin to defer a decision until the legislation required to implement the agreement has been passed. That meant that the agreement would not be approved on 19th October so that the Benn Act required the Prime Minister to ask the European Union for a three month extension, something which he then did, albeit rather churlishly. Disappointing, eh? Complicated too. It will come as no surprise that Letwin was a fellow of both Princeton and Cambridge.
The question is “why?” and the answer is “distrust”, a concern that the deal having been approved, and the requirement for a time extension under the Benn Act having fallen away, things would somehow collapse in Parliament and we would be left with a “no deal” Brexit. If you listen to Letwin this is not a suspicion that Mr Johnson has been trying to push things this way all along but more a worry that the legislative process will somehow go wrong. No doubt it is actually a bit of each.
To the observer outside the Westminster bubble, the risk may seem altogether too remote to justify postponing the big decision, but within it the politicians are beginning to lose their perspective in the excitement of the fight. Let us look at some of the more foolish remarks which we have heard recently.
It is perhaps unfortunate that the stupidest should be at the foundation of Labour’s Brexit policy. That is their concern that leaving the EU could trash the protection of workers rights in some form of race to the bottom. At a very literal level, of course, they’re right. The EU has led in this field and once we are outside it we can alter the rules at will. The trouble is that it ignores two points. The first is that existing rights will remain in place until specifically repealed. The second is that the question of whether to repeal them or not will be for future governments chosen by the electorate at general elections on the back of detailed manifestos. Does Labour not trust this process? Do they secretly believe that the public should not be allowed to make choices in this area? Or have they simply given up on the prospect of winning elections so that they need to remove things they really care about from the democratic process? They should make it clear.
Even more foolish are the concerns about the environment. Mr Johnson has already indicated that this is a key issue for him and, even if you don’t take his word, it is obvious from the circumstances that that must be right. He is clearly a highly ambitious man and that has driven him to Downing Street. Do not for a moment imagine that his ambitions end there, however. He will want to go down in the history books as a famous reformer and a slayer of dragons. The big dragon at the moment is environmental damage and it would be an extraordinary betrayal of his own ambition if he did not focus on the area. Of course he will. It is his route to immortality.
Now for a third, heard a little less now but definitely extant a few weeks ago. That is the idea that the negotiations with the EU were bogus and that Boris really wants a no deal Brexit. To get to the bottom of this one, exclude everything that he has said on the subject (after all, the people who believe the idea think he is a pathological liar) and ask yourself the question “Why?” Leave with a deal and he has a prospect of taking the country with him, thus maximising the support on which he can rely in his attempt to build an outgoing Britain. Leave without a deal and the chaos of the exit could easily sink him. Why would an ambitious man looking for his place in the history books go for that?
There seems to be a gap opening up between reality and what the politicians say, and I do not think that the matter is one of honesty. Working on complicated issues for too long takes you too close to the page and gradually perspective and common sense get lost. The nonsense does not run one way either. Look at the suggestions that Jeremy Corbyn is anti-Semitic for a vivid example. His failure to effectively tackle anti-Semitism in his party is certainly regrettable but that is down to management skills not some secret racist agenda.
Which brings us back to Sir Oliver’s amendment. Do we really think that if the agreement was voted through it would somehow vaporise into a “no deal” Brexit either because of some cunning plan by the Government or because somehow the parliamentary progress will go wrong? Yes, it’s theoretically possible, of course; but really, Sir Oliver, really?
