You spin me right round baby right round
Two weeks of shadowing the Theresa May proved insufficient to secure a straight answer on the state of Brexit negotiations.
A special broadcast of the BBC’s Panorama saw Nick Robinson embedding with the Prime Minister as she enters into the final stages of talks with Brussels.
But for all effort, time and Robinson’s prowess, not once could the PM offer substance, only going off script to denounce Boris Johnson’s evocation of Islamist terror.
The rest was formulaic and circular. Talk about your plan, talk about getting on with Brexit. The type of communication worthy of the Gear Wars that lost a strong and stable majority in the House of Commons.
Panorama‘s opening soundbite was textbook May:
“What I’m doing as Prime Minister, what we’re doing as a government and what we did here at Chequers in putting the plan together, is put a plan together that delivers on the vote that people took. Because it means an end to free movement, an end to jurisdiction of the European Court, an end to sending vast sums of money and other things like coming out of the fisheries policy, the agricultural policy. But at the same time we’re able to protect jobs and livelihoods.”
That’s the big vision of May’s Chequers plan, it goes no further than the meaningless platitudes of the Brexit campaign. When pushed on criticism of that plan, the Prime Minister elaborated:
“Well, look. There are some people who say to me ‘Look we want to carry on the relationship that we’ve always had.’ Basically we want to stay in the EU. There are other people who say ‘We want to be as distant as possible from the EU.’
But what’s actually in the UK’s interest, what’s in our interest, is to continue to have good cooperation with the EU on things like security, it’s to continue to have good opportunities for trade with the EU and to make sure that businesses that have a relationship with the EU today don’t see any change.”
And what of parliament voting through the final Brexit deal, whatever shape it may take? The vote that will make or break your leadership of the Conservative party and this country. A vote where parliament could reject the Chequers option and leave the country on the precipice of leaving the EU without a deal. What have you to say about that Prime Minister?
“Every member of parliament, when it comes to that vote, will, I’m sure, recognise the significance of that vote. Do we really think that if the EU, we’ve been through this negotiation, we get to the point where we’ve agreed this deal and parliament says go back and get another deal, do you think the EU is going to give a better deal at that point?
“I think that the alternative to that will be not having a deal. A) because I don’t think the negotiations would have that deal and B) we’re leaving on the 29th March 2019.”
Two weeks wasn’t enough time to get a gram of substance, a single straight answer, out of the Prime Minister.
Maybe three will? The offer’s there, Prime Minister.
