Brexit, Persued by a Bear.
Today has
definitely been a day to be frustrated with many of the main players in UK
politics for their duplicitous conniving.
For the day to
start with the resignation of Dominic Raab - the latest Brexit Secretary to go,
following the loss of the gurning, giggling git David Davis in similar
circumstances - the morning after the Cabinet had supposedly got behind the proposed draft EU
withdrawal agreement, was a definite act of cuntishness of the highest regard,
setting about a chain of events that only added to the chaos.
Like many of the
people who are so keen to distance themselves from the actual negotiations of a
Brexit deal without offering any viable altenative (Davis, Boris and Jo Johnson
and Rees-Mogg, not to mention Gove and Leadsom who dropped out of the leadership
race with Boris too, rather than be tarnished by being connected with the
process) Raab was thinking only of his own career, and trying to score some
personal damage-limitation without caring about the consequences. Likewise,
Ester McVey threw her resignation into the ring too, all within hours of
Theresa May announcing the cabinet were supporting the arrived-at draft withdrawal
agreement. This could only contribute heavily to the UK’s current reputation
for being an idiotic country with an overinflated sense of self-importance, that’s
totally unable to decide what to do for the best.
What annoys me is
everyone within government who pretends they’re unhappy with what’s been
negotiated thus far knows it’s a complicated and convoluted process that can’t
be settled without making huge concessions, and that the draft withdrawal agreement
will not contain finite detail as it’s literally just the beginning of an
attempt to arrive at an eventual deal. They know this and yet they show mock fury at
what we apparently haven’t got. Why? Because they want to make Theresa May the
scapegoat while also staying away from the nitty-gritty so as not to be
connected with it; no-one wants to do the job, but everyone wants to pick up
the pieces, yet it any of them had been in the PM’s position, they would not
have been able to arrive at anything more beneficial by this point.
If anything, I
bizarrely find myself feeling sorry for Theresa May today, and at the very
least impressed by her resolve; she currently has the thankless task of being
the Prime Minister connected with the near-impossible job of negotiating a
Brexit deal that will appease the fantasists who thought leaving the EU was a
good idea (or that we had any positive sway as an island nation to manage
without free trade with mainland Europe), those who desperately want to remain but
accept the referendum result has to be carried through and those who seek to
stop it happening at all.
I fall somewhere
between the latter two options; I would never have voted to leave
the EU - I believe in inclusion over exclusion and that if anything
we should be seeking to preserve our relationship with Europe and the rest of
the world, as we are far better united than in division - but I reluctantly
accept that the UK voted to leave by a small margin, but a margin nevertheless.
While the Leave campaign was clearly corrupt and riddled with exaggeration and
lies, and while the people behind it should be taken to account for
misinforming and exaggerating the wonders we’d receive on our exit (let’s not
mention that fucking Gove & Johnson-inspired bus), there comes a point
where we just have to accept we’ve drawn the shit card and the shit card’s here
to stay, so we’d better do our best to make it work as well we can, and that
has to start somewhere; it’s not like any of the MPs making a big scene are
offering any kind of alternative, detailed or not. They know how the
system works, but are pretending it’s something else in an
attempt to hoodwink the country into eventually wanting them in power instead, while
also damaging Theresa May in the process. That’s why I feel sorry for her, as
you can only imagine how pressured today must have been, from talking to the
House for three hours to attempting to bat away references to her stepping down;
while I’d never vote for her, I think
she should at least be allowed to get on with the job she is
expected to do. Look at it this way: at least this time she didn’t dance.