Brexit: getting the message

07/08/2018

It's behind a paywall but if you want to get the backstory for what former foreign secretary William Hague has written for the Telegraph, coprophagia works in our favour for once. You can read all about it in the Independent.

If Hague really believes what he is writing – suggesting that Macron can intervene to find "creative answers" to the Brexit talks – then he learned very little about the EU in his tenure as foreign secretary. On the other hand, this could just be another attempt to paint the UK as the "victim", using the intransigence of the French as a back-up in case people don't entirely buy the "Brussels bullies" story.

After all, if the British public can be assumed to be gullible enough, they can be sold the story line that Mrs May's Chequers plan could have been a goer, if only the French President had intervened. That he didn't even respond after our prime minister cut short her holiday to see him obviously shows that these damn foreigners can't be relied on, so no fault can possibly attach to "team UK" for failure of the talks.

And if that theory is mad enough to be true, so is the squib from The Sun which is as neat a piece of character assassination as Nick Gutteridge and Tom Newton Dunn could devise, aimed – some say – at destabilising Mrs May and clearing the way for a leadership bid by Mr Johnson after the recess.

The essence of The Sun's story – so far exclusive to the paper – is that Mrs May has been so "irrational" and "emotionally inspired" throughout the Brexit talks that the Commission has preferred "dealing with the tub-thumping US President".

Speaking to The Sun anonymously (as ever), an "EU ambassador" has savaged Mrs May's proposal for a goods only trade deal as two centuries out of date – dubbing it "very nostalgic" for the seafaring days of Empire. This "very senior figure" added: "If this had been a rational discussion like we have with Trump on cars, what's underneath is rational". But, with the UK "from the start this has not been a rational negotiation, that’s what makes it so difficult".

There is some logic, here, one supposes, in trashing both Mrs May and her plan. Alongside the "ultras" pouring out of the woodwork to support the "WTO option", that creates the space for a right-wing saviour to emerge – one who will cut ties with Brussels and take us out to the new-found nirvana of a relationship dominated by WTO rules.

This might be enough to explain why there is no attempt to engage on the WTO option. In this scenario, it is being used as a political platform rather than as a serious argument, which would make the purity of the message far more important than the content. We are being treated to the gospel of our new saviours, to be embraced by the messiah once he rises again.

Here though, one is not quite sure whether The Times is on-message, with a seriously mad piece by Clare Foges (who she?) standing in for Rachael Sylvester.

From the keyboard of this person, under the headline, "The EU was always going to punish us for Brexit", we are treated to the thesis that attacking Brussels for "intransigence" shows "how deluded Leavers are about their ability to strike a favourable deal".

Writes la Foges, "the EU intransigence Liam Fox rages about was destined from the start". Brexiteers are thus enjoined not to claim, "when the current shambles deepens to a crisis, that it would all have been different if we’d been more bold, if we’d had more hope or optimism, or if the government had prepared more thoroughly for a no-deal outcome".

We must not, it appears, "hang this all on the hapless Theresa May, the greatest fall-guy in political history who (though not good at her job) could have as easily changed the mind of the EU establishment as changed the tides of the sea".

If only we had had the great insight of this far-seeing columnist, we would have known all along that the Europeans "were always going to put first the integrity of the single market, the four freedoms, the project they believe in so passionately".

On that basis, we have to accept that Britain "was always going to scrape a deal that would leave us worse off than before, or no deal that will take us God knows where". The writing was always on the wall, writes Foges. That's why Brexit was always a terrible idea.

Where that actually takes us, God knows. In the middle of an existential crisis over how we manage the Brexit process, it is so very useful to be told that we shouldn't have embarked on the venture in the first place. Without such perspicacious journalism, how could we possibly function as a society?

There is perhaps some better comfort to be gained from John Harris in the Guardian who has finally woken up to the danger of the "ultras" and reports under the heading: "Rich, reckless Brexit zealots are fighting a new class war". The likes of Liam Fox seek a Britain that would be disastrous for many leave voters, he writes, declaring that "these ultra-free-marketeers must be stopped".

Picking up on the usual suspects, Harris tells us that the left has failed to really go for them for far too long. Part of the explanation, he suggests, lies in both an aversion to offending leave supporters who might vote Labour, and a sense that Johnson, Farage et al are an integral part of the crisis that may yet bring down the government.

That certainly makes sense, as Labour has been so busy exploiting the shambles for its own party political gain that it has not been anywhere near being an effective opposition. And the result, Harris argues, is that these people have been able to exert an influence on politics – and, by extension, the future of the country – way beyond their merit. It is time, he says, they were battled with.

But there is nothing much on offer apart from polemics. "The left has to wake up", say Harris. "It is the reckless right, not 'Blairites' and centrists, that is the real enemy. If we want an end to the fear and anxiety that currently define the national mood and a future worth living for, these are the saboteurs who will have to be crushed".

Pete is a little more direct, arguing that, if we want the job done, we'll have to do it ourselves. Much of the political battle is being fought out on social media – the blogs and Twitter in particular, and while the world sleeps, we are fighting back.

No one, not even the mighty Mail can claim to be influencing a government which has long since ceased to listen to anyone, but politics is about creating a groundswell, telling politicians what is and is not acceptable. And, with a growing reach, our message is being heard.

That said, the "stunning" news of the morning comes from The Times, rather out of left field. An issue that should have been settled – our access to Europol – has re-emerged.

Police leaders are warning that, in the absence of a negotiated settlement, forces across the country would face "a significant loss of operational capacity" instantly, losing vital access to cross-border investigative powers and databases.

This is in a letter from the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC), sent to Mr Javid. It says that: "Considerable additional resource would be required for policing to operate using non-EU tools and that such tools would be suboptimal - potentially putting operational efficiency and public safety at risk".

No doubt, the "reckless right" can dismiss this as another contribution to "project fear", as they groom their messiah to take over from the hapless Mrs May, with Ruth Lea being the latest to add her stupidity to the continuum, with the false and often debunked assertion that "the US trades with the #EU under WTO rules, without a preferential trade deal".

But it was significant that, of the 53 responses, the vast majority were hostile, telling Miss Lea that she was wrong. She won't listen – the "ultras" never do – but the many thousands who read the thread will have got the message. Every one of us has a voice. We must all learn how to use it the most effective way.