No.38 - Mrs May’s Castle: From Rubble to Fantasy and back to Rubble.
Dear James,
Mrs May’s castle collapsed on Tuesday. In a pincer attack from the enemy without and the enemy within, her revamped Withdrawal Treaty fell in a cloud of dust onto the streets of Westminster. Yet, even now, the dazed, crazed, ghost like figure of Mrs May can be seen wandering through the rubble of broken bricks attempting to rebuild her fantasy fortress.
The ghost has tasked her chief architect, one Sir Geoffrey Cox, to find a magic way to rescue whatever is left of the magnificent structure so recently collapsed. The rescue plan will convince the die hard fighters of the DUP, those ancient followers of William of Orange, that the castle still stands. According to reports, Mr Cox has discovered an obscure clause in the Treaty of Vienna on Treaties that suggests that, in the event of Britain becoming trapped in the backstop, a fundamental material element of a Treaty will have been changed, and therefore, the treaty itself may be null and void. In other words, the Irish backstop is no longer a backstop, Mrs May’s castle still stands and black is white and white is black. Even when in reality her castle is gone, collapsed, null and void! It is an ex-castle.
In the current delirium of Westminster however, anything is possible. MPs and what remains of government, are flailing amidst the dust and ruins to find a way out of the mess. Money is being offered, palms are being greased, Thumbscrews are being tightened. Mrs May’s artisans are saying one thing and doing another. The Clerk of Works, Steven Barclay, made a rousing speech on Tuesday defending her castle and then immediately voted to pull it down. Loyalty is treachery and treachery is loyalty in the fevered atmosphere of the ruins of Castle May. Reality has long since departed our shores.
But supposing the DUP does finally pretend that its fundamental objection to the backstop has been wafted away in the Vienna Woods? The DUP may acquiesce, throw away its principles, take the Queen’s shilling and carry the majority of the ERG with them. Castle May may be resurrected, rebuilt, reconstructed. We may still leave the EU at the end of this month or even June. But it will all be fantasy land. Her reborn castle will still be built on fantasy foundations. It may totter, stumble into a half life reality but the contradictions will persist. Built on half foundations, tilted violently to the right, leaning precariously towards the abyss, the inherently unstable edifice will probably collapse in the next two transition years of further endless altercation with Europe.
We need some reality James, reality unavailable to those trapped in Mrs May’s mindset. I note that you voted against last week’s extension but to no avail. Your peers voted by 413 to 202 - a majority of 211 - for Mrs May to ask the EU for a delay to Brexit. At last a decision has been handed to people who are relatively sane. Perhaps, at last we shall be brought back to our senses?
Party politics has failed us. With parliament and the nation so desperately divided along so many fault lines, the best way forward surely is to accept the help of the EU’s offer of a long extension and use it to step back and look at our situation from the national interest as a whole. Now surely is the time to reflect, to open a Commission of Enquiry along the lines of the Mitchell Commission in Northern Ireland all those years ago. Perhaps we need the help of an outside arbiter? Someone who
To that end a delay of nine months to a year and with the promise of putting the vote back to the electorate is the only sane and fair way forward.
Think about it James,
Kind regards,
BH - Your Concerned Constituent