These past
tempestuous
days in
British
politics
have been a
calamity at
several
levels.
There has
been the
loss of
office for
David Davis
and
Boris
Johnson,
who must
both feel
bruised and
angry.
The British
Cabinet was
demeaned by
some Downing
Street thug
(thought to
be Chief
Whip Julian
Smith) who
aggressively
told
ministers
they could
damn well
order
minicabs
home from
the Prime
Minister’s
country
house,
Chequers, if
they wished
to resign
last Friday.
And the
national
negotiating
position has
been
severely
weakened by
the numerous
concessions
so feebly
offered by
Number 10.
These
past
tempestuous
days in
British
politics
have
been a
calamity
at
several
levels,
writes
Quentin
Letts,
including
the
departure
of Boris
Johnson
(pictured)
Then there
is the
position of
Theresa May.
To say her
authority
has been
dented does
not even
start to
describe the
damage she
has
sustained.
She has been
battered
like the
panels of a
jalopy in a
stock-car
gymkhana.
She has
behaved in
an
unprincipled,
cowardly,
erratic
fashion. How
can she ever
regain her
party’s
support?
Yet the
political
damage goes
far beyond
any of these
significant
developments.
Something
deeper and
more
dangerous
has
happened.
The past few
days have
laid bare a
suicidal
determination
in our
political
class to
ignore the
will of the
people.
They believe
they know
better, and
so they are
shamelessly,
yet
covertly,
trying to
overturn the
EU
referendum’s
Leave
result. I
genuinely
think they
have lost
their
marbles.
Party
activists
and
electors,
and not just
those who
supported
Leave, will
think: ‘Why
should we
bother to
vote in
future if
our
decisions
are binned?
Why bother
with
parliamentary
politics?’
That is a
question our
country has
not
addressed
since the
17th
century’s
brutal Civil
War, and it
is not an
argument we
should
lightly wish
to revisit.
If you think
I am
exaggerating
the public
disquiet,
listen to
Wellingborough’s
Tory MP
Peter Bone.
On Monday he
told the
Commons that
his
long-serving
local Tory
activists,
who for
years had
gone out
doorstepping
in all
weathers,
felt so
betrayed by
Mrs May that
they had
gone on
strike. Ed
Vaizey, a
metropolitan
Europhile MP
sitting
behind Mr
Bone,
shouted
‘rubbish!’
repeatedly.
Why? Mr Bone
was simply
reporting
what had
happened.
Perhaps Mr
Vaizey
should have
heard
stalwart
Tory
supporters
after church
at our
village in
Herefordshire
last Sunday.
Some were
unable to
mention Mrs
May’s name
without
swearing —
and that was
on
consecrated
ground.
Still think
I’m
over-stating
the case,
Vaizey? Look
at the
letters
column in
the
true-blue
Daily
Telegraph.
Since the
end of last
week, it has
throbbed
with a rage
never
previously
seen on
those
genteel
pages.
Quentin
Letts
reflects
on the
departure
of David
Davis
(far
left)
and
Boris
Johnson
as well
as what
it means
for
Theresa
May
Tory
supporters
are not
naturally
troublesome
people. They
tend to
express
themselves
politely.
But
‘timidity’,
‘duplicity’,
‘vacillation’,
‘total
surrender’,
‘appalling’,
‘appeaser’ —
these are
just some of
the words
Telegraph
letter-writers
have flung
at vicar’s
daughter Mrs
May.
Let no one,
not even an
Ed Vaizey,
be in doubt
that this
issue has
achieved
‘cut-through’
with the
public.
When Mrs May
gathered her
Cabinet at
Chequers
last Friday
it was still
possible to
believe that
she and her
officials
would honour
their
repeated
promises to
set us free
from the
draining
suction of
Brussels.
She was
going to
liberate us
so we could
run our own
trade,
control our
own borders,
supervise
our finances
and have our
own judicial
system and
sovereign
Parliament.
But by the
end of
Friday,
having held
ministers in
the
political
equivalent
of a police
riot-squad
‘kettling’
operation,
she
announced
that the
Government’s
position on
Brexit had
‘evolved’.
Translation:
it had
capitulated.
Suddenly she
wanted soft
arrangements
on trade and
customs
which are
scarcely
different
from current
EU rules.
Suddenly,
too, there
was talk of
a ‘mobility
framework’
with the EU.
This looks
to be
another way
of saying
‘freedom of
movement’.
EU
arrangements
rejected by
17.4 million
voters are
slyly being
rebadged.
But British
voters will
not be
fooled.
What did you
make of Mrs
May when she
became Prime
Minister? My
word for her
in last
year’s
election was
‘glumbucket’.
Yet she at
least seemed
to be
straight.
It worried
me that she
had been a
Remain
supporter,
Brexit being
such an
emotional
thing, but
she seemed
to make the
right noises
about
obeying the
will of the
people.
Even last
Wednesday,
when she
must have
known
precisely
the terms of
the ambush
she was so
disgracefully
about to
spring on
Messrs Davis
and Johnson,
she assured
Parliament
she was
going to do
what the
referendum
voters had
ordered.
I regret to
say, she was
either
lying, or
she has a
different
understanding
of the
English
language
from normal
people.
Her ‘Brexit
means Brexit’
line was
exposed as a
con, as
meaningless
as her
dreadful
‘strong and
stable’
mantra
during last
year’s
General
Election.
Yet I urge
Brexiteers
not to be
entirely
despondent.
We will, at
the very
least, be
leaving the
EU in name,
and future
governments
will,
therefore,
be able to
extract us
with
relative
ease now
that the EU
(Withdrawal)
Act is on
the statute
book.
That Act
overturns
Ted Heath’s
1972 laws
which took
us into the
Brussels
quicksands.
Brexit is
not a total
failure. But
it is a
great deal
less
wonderful
than it
could have
been if we
had been led
by a more
visionary PM
rather than
this limited
clunker May.
Former Tory
leader Lord
Hague wrote
yesterday
that
politics is
divided into
‘Romantics’
and
‘Realists’,
and that it
was the
latter who
understood
that the
Chequers
compromise
was
necessary.
Lord Hague
underplays
the
political
importance
of the
heart.
Voters want,
to quite a
large
degree, to
be seduced
by a vision
of
improvement
and to have
that sold to
them with
charm and
fervour.
Chequers was
just flat
lemonade. It
was
defeatist.
Hopeless in
the literal
sense of
that word.
Under Mrs
May’s
premiership,
the
political
headlines
are all
about Brexit
being a
problem.
No it isn’t.
It could be
terrifically
exciting.
The
difficulties
arise
entirely
from the
Remainers.
And the more
they make
these
problems,
the more
they will
demoralise
the public
they are
supposed to
serve.
I write this
with a heavy
heart for I
am a
patriotic
parliamentarian
and, indeed,
a believer
in elitism.
For me, an
elite is an
essential
part of any
aspirational
society, for
it can
create a top
tier which
those on
lower strata
can aim to
join.
Yet an elite
must be
porous. It
must not try
to fence off
its
privileges.
That is what
our elite,
in the law,
the BBC,
Civil
Service, the
Confederation
of British
Industry and
elsewhere
have been
doing.
Horrified by
what they
see as the
ignorance of
the pro-Brexit
lower
orders, they
are fighting
dirtily to
maintain
their
Brussels
career
paths, their
industrial
subsidies
and those EU
regulations
which create
oodles of
work for
them.
Mrs May
claims that
her Chequers
agreement
has ‘united’
her team.
How can she
utter such
obvious
nonsense?
Chequers has
riven Mrs
May’s party
as blackly
as a bolt of
lightning
splits a
country oak.
And it has
sickened the
voters:
opinion
polls show
support for
Brexit only
increasing.
The scheming
civil
servants may
win today’s
battles, but
they will
eventually
lose.
I’m afraid
even Mrs
May’s
one-time
supporters —
or at least
the ones I
have met and
communicated
with — are
now appalled
by her. The
more she
croaks on
about how
her policy
‘is not a
betrayal’,
the more
they will
think it is.
She has
fallen
through that
swivelling
mirror Nick
Clegg
vanished
through when
he reneged
on Lib Dem
promises not
to raise
university
fees. His
party was
wiped out at
the next
election.
So will the
Tories be
unless they
can replace
her,
possibly
next year,
with someone
who is
fresh,
optimistic,
romantically
pro-Brexit
and, most of
all, someone
who
understands
that the
elite and
its
officials
are the
servants,
and the
people their
masters.