No.40 - It’s your Fault, not Mine! The Last Refuge of the Monomaniac!

Dear James,

Did you see the looks of silent bewilderment and sullen horror on the faces of the opposition when Mrs May stood at the despatch box yesterday? And the looks of glum embarrassment from the front bench around her? They looked as if they were seeing a ghost. And they were seeing a ghost – of a Prime Minister, drained of the flesh of power and unable to project to the living. 

Then, at the haunting hour last night, the lady reappeared, temporarily, as flesh. Artificially stiffened by those outward trappings of power, camera lights and a couple of Union Jacks draped elegantly behind her, the spectre stood amidst the ruins of her castle and told us that we had all had enough of Brexit and that parliament had one last chance to vote her Withdrawal Agreement through. 

From her vast reserves of human insight, this dutiful bureaucrat, who should never have become a politician, proceeded to tell us that she knew what we were all thinking. She is on our side. She told us we were all fed up with the game playing of parliament and that we wanted her to get this thing sorted. Parliament was the culprit. If only they could see the light and vote for her deal! If only people would let her get on without the constant need for her to talk to them. How tempting are the attractions of dictatorship and autocracy. How necessary, at times like this, is the scrutiny of parliament. 

Mrs May is living in a fantasy world. Far from being the victim of parliamentary gamesmanship, she is its ultimate proponent. It is she who deliberately excluded parliament from her negotiations with the EU. It is she who has shunned any cross-party communication ever since. It is she, who on the basis of a slim 3.4% majority in the Referendum of 2016, swerved all her energies and strategies onto the extreme wing of her party. Despite her hollow feigning of firmness and dogged determination to stick it out, the lady is fundamentally scared. The raucous noise of her Brexiteers that had been scaring her predecessors for decades, frightened this lady into their camp from the moment she became PM. They were lucky. They had a person who sees the survival of her party as the most important thing in her life. Who cares about the national interest? Once frightened, Mrs May was theirs. Now, in the sad, cul de sac of what remains of her strategy, she lashes out blaming everyone but herself. What arrogance! What blindness! What chutzpah!

Blame has always been at the centre of politics. Cameron and Osborn’s ‘blame mantra’ was, ‘Gordon Brown caused the 2008 financial crisis.’  In fact its seeds were sown long before Brown came to power through the growth of China, the consequent surfeit of Chinese cash, the US lead deregulation of capitalism and the burial of risk in the derivatives market and sub-prime mortgages. But ‘Blame Brown’ became the Tory party Ur-myth of Osborn’s austerity dogma.  On the other side of this polarization are the blanket blames of Corbyn’s Labour Party i.e capitalism itself. 

There seems to be an iron law of inverse proportions. When the rulers have no ideas, the blame game goes up. When the rulers have the right ideas, blame evaporates and the government focusses on delivery. At the moment we are in an extreme form of the former. Mrs May is trapped in a situation of her own making. 

So where next James? Your leader has had to abandon her deadline of March 29th for leaving the EU and power is now in the hands of the EU. Fortunately, they seem to be calmer, more confident and less prone to the blame games of our own PM. Their forbearance has been formidable. Mr Tusk has already suggested a short delay – on the condition that Mrs May’s Meaningful Vote No.3 passes next week. This is most unlikely given that she has alienated even more MPs with her outburst last night. So she will then be completely in the hands of the EU. 

May I attempt a prediction? Mrs May will take us all up to the deadline of Thursday next week recklessly exposing our once proud nation to the consequences of crashing out. The EU will then call a crisis summit and, out of the goodness of their hearts, will offer us a lengthy extension of Article 50 on the condition that everything is finally put to a People’s Vote.  

That might just represent the beginning of the end of the nightmare visited upon our nation by your Party’s 40 year old Civil War. 

Any chance that you might be persuaded to accept the inevitable James? 

Kind regards,  

BH - Your Concerned Constituent