by John Crace
* * *
David Davis sees Article 50 defeat as a win in his alternative facts narrative
24 JANUARY 2017
As Lord Neuberger delivered the Supreme Court judgment, the attorney general, Jeremy Wright, slowly shook his head. It must have been the Pavlovian response of a lawyer used to losing most of his cases, as Wright was the only person in court who appeared to be surprised by the verdict. There again, he had probably been the only person in court to have just received a text from the prime minister that said: ‘I gave you one job. ONE JOB.’
A few hours later, David Davis came to the Commons to explain why the government had never believed the ’Enemies of the People’ really were the ‘Enemies of the People’ and had only challenged what the ‘Enemies of the People’ had originally said to enable the rest of the country to understand why they weren’t the ‘Enemies of the People’. The alternative facts narrative is catching on in the UK. Michael Fallon on Monday, Davis on Tuesday and no doubt Theresa May on Wednesday.
Everything had gone exactly to plan, Davis insisted, his fists clenched tight, and the government had only tried to avoid letting parliament have a say in the triggering of Article 50 in order to let the judiciary assert its independence. But now the judges had had their say, he was going to take back control by scribbling a few sentences on the back of an envelope to put before parliament. In the interests of national unity, the will of the 52% could not be denied.
‘This has been a good day for democracy,’ Keir Starmer, shadow Brexit minister, replied, ‘and the prime minister was wrong to sideline parliament.’ May, sitting next to Davis, had the grace to squirm uncomfortably. Starmer expressed his surprise that the government thought it could pass off a speech about leaving the single market – made to a few ambassadors at Lancaster House – as proper parliamentary scrutiny and then say the whole Supreme Court appeal was a massive waste of time and money.
Davis adopted his best hurt face. The prime minister had never been trying to sideline democracy. Rather she had been trying to mainline it. Her only crime had been to carry out the will of the people by making sure that parliament was not given a chance to take back control of the process of taking back control of parliamentary democracy. He then paused, waiting for a response. None came. If he could get away with nonsense like that he could probably get away with anything.
Buoyed by this thought, he reiterated his position. Losing the appeal had been part of a cunning masterplan and the government could not be more pleased with the verdict. He had already said three times that the ‘Enemies of the People’ were not really the ‘Enemies of the People’ and he would continue to do so. The fact that the ‘Enemies of the People’ had upheld the verdict of the ‘Junior Enemies of the People’ only proved how right the government had been to appeal against the original decision because it provided clarity.
What Davis wouldn’t do, though, was give any kind of statement that might undermine the government’s negotiating position, because that wouldn’t be in the national interest. As for what the national interest was, it would all become clear at the end of the Brexit negotiations, as whatever the government managed to negotiate would turn out to be in the national interest. He really couldn’t be clearer than that. ‘I’ve already come to the house five times to make statements,’ he moaned, ‘so you can’t accuse me of saying nothing.’ No one had the heart to tell him that the reason he had needed to make a fifth statement was both because he’d said next to nothing in the previous four and because the prime minister had picked an unnecessary fight with parliament and the judiciary.
‘The split judgment shows the prime minister was right to appeal to the Supreme Court,’ said a deranged Iain Duncan Smith, for whom an 8–3 defeat is a moral victory. It could have been worse. They could have lost 11–0. Goal difference is going to count for a lot in Brexit apparently.
Like everyone else, Davis wisely chose to ignore IDS but was then forced to listen to countless MPs from both sides of the house asking him to put a white paper before parliament. ‘No,’ said Davis. He wasn’t going to provide that sort of detail as it would only give people a chance to table amendments. He hadn’t taken back control only to give it away again. Rather he was just going to do the bare minimum the ‘Enemies of the People’ had required of the government. Not that they were ‘Enemies of the People’ of course.
* * *
It had been a big enough shock for the government when Donald Trump had been elected president of the USA the previous November; if either Theresa May or Boris Johnson had had any indication that The Donald would become one of the two most powerful men in the world they would never have been so rude about him during the presidential campaign. But worse was to follow when it was Nigel Farage who got the invitation to the inauguration and Michael Gove – in the company of Rupert Murdoch – who received the second audience with the president to write a sycophantic profile. The snub to Theresa May could not have been made clearer. Even though she was prime minister, in the president’s mind she was only the third most important British politician. Her advisers quickly phoned the White House to secure a meeting.
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Theresa May and Trump: PM shows lengths she’ll go to for Britain
27 JANUARY 2017
The body language could hardly have been more awkward as Theresa May and Donald Trump posed for their blind date in front of the bust of Winston Churchill in the Oval Office. The prime minister kept her distance and looked faintly embarrassed, as if it was only just dawning on her that the main reason she was the first foreign leader to meet the US president was because all the others had thought better of it. That and the fact she was a bit desperate. Britain doesn’t have as many friends as it used to.
Trump merely looked a bit blank. Perhaps this was because the British prime minister wasn’t the woman he had been expecting. All morning the White House had been tweeting that he was about to meet Teresa May, the spelling mistake turning the prime minister into a porn star. The special relationship has always been rather more special to us than the Americans. As the two leaders finally shook hands, the bust of Churchill covered its eyes and begged to be sent back to Britain. Their hands remained uneasily entwined as they walked down the colonnade towards the Palm Room. When Trump started to creepily stroke her hand, Theresa almost retched. She quickly pulled herself together and reminded herself to just think of England. Sometimes you had to take one for the team.
Things had marginally improved by the time Trump and May began their press conference an hour or so later. They could at least look each other in the eye. The president kicked off by saying how honoured Theresa was to be the first leader to the White House and that their talks had highlighted Brexit was indeed a blessing and the special relationship was going to be even more special from now on. More special for whom was left unanswered. His fingers appeared to be moving along his script as he talked. If Trump wasn’t exactly presidential, at least he held his narcissism vaguely in check.
Theresa appeared to have got rather more out of the talks than Trump. After promising Trump a ride in a horse-drawn coach with the Queen and a game of golf in Scotland, she had definitely heard the president say he was ‘100% behind NATO’ even though he thought it was obsolete. She also said she would bully other EU leaders into paying more cash into NATO. Like they were going to listen to her. The prime minister also seemed to think the prospects were good for the US selling us chlorinated chicken and taking over the NHS and of course she understood that the US might want to terminate with 30 days’ notice.
Things became rather more interesting when the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg asked the awkward questions about torture, banning Muslims and being untrustworthy that Theresa had somehow forgotten to ask. ‘There goes that relationship,’ said Trump. He was only half joking. The president went on to say that he was all for waterboarding but if his defence secretary decided not to use it that was OK by him as he could always be waterboarded into changing his mind.
Theresa closed her eyes and hoped Trump wouldn’t get too sidetracked. Her prayers were answered as The Donald returned to Brexit. Brexit was great because he had predicted it and he’d never liked those EU consortium guys because they had once cost him money by blocking one of his deals. ‘That’s why you needed Brexit,’ he concluded.
The last word went to Theresa, who tried to wrap things up in a more statesmanlike fashion by talking about ‘ordinary working people’, but by now Trump had already got bored and was tucking his speech inside his breast pocket as she spoke. Twenty minutes is about all his attention span can take. Theresa breathed a sigh of relief. It could have been worse. He could have started a war. He could have grabbed her pussy. At least she’d got out with some of her self-respect intact. Not much. But some.
* * *
The Supreme Court ruling meant that the government had to hurriedly cobble together a bill to put before parliament if it was still to meet its timetable of triggering Article 50 before March 31st. In hindsight, allocating two days to a debate on a 137-word bill was at least a day and a half too long. Not because the bill to trigger Article 50 was of no importance, but because it gave MPs licence to rehash old speeches and fight battles that had already been long since won and lost. Due process may be a democratic necessity but it’s not always pretty. Or edifying.
‘We’ve already reached the point of no return,’ David Davis had growled. The Brexit secretary’s voice had been even croakier than usual and he clearly regarded this latest outing at the dispatch box as beyond the call of duty. He still hadn’t quite accepted that he could have saved himself a lot of time and effort had the government agreed to publish a white paper six months ago. But as he was there, he would briefly recap. Brexit meant Brexit and that was that.
The debate that followed the Brexit secretary’s opening speech was something of a damp squib, as Jeremy Corbyn had already made backing the government a three-line whip for Labour MPs. Verbal wallpaper to fill the time before the vote. Heaviest of hearts / gravest of misgivings / Britain never, never will be slaves – delete where applicable. Only those Labour Remainers, such as Stella Creasy, Chris Bryant and Mary Creagh, who were planning to ignore their party line, managed to inject any real passion. It’s so much easier to sound sincere when you actually believe in what you’re saying.
Jenny Chapman and David Jones had been no less prosaic in summing up for both sides. Perhaps they had felt they had to live down too much of what had gone before. Jones even managed to lose his place and announce that Britain would be leaving the UK. Now that would have been news.
It was hard to believe this had all been a preamble to what was a historic moment. Only a year ago, Euroscepticism had been a strictly top-shelf activity, limited to a few hardcore fetishists. Now parliament was about to vote in favour of something most MPs knew to be a bad idea. With only the Lib Dems, the SNP, Ken Clarke and a few Labour refuseniks voting against, the bill was passed by an overwhelming majority.
The following week, Labour tabled an amendment to the Article 50 bill calling for a meaningful vote to any final deal and during the committee stage reading in parliament, Brexit minister David Jones made an announcement. After careful consideration of the possibility that there might be rather too many Tory rebels for comfort, the government was prepared to allow parliament a vote on Britain’s withdrawal from and future relationship with the EU before the deal was voted on by the European parliament.
Keir Starmer welcomed this as an important concession, but Jones was quick to put him right. He was calling it a concession because he needed to be seen to be making a concession. But to avoid any confusion, this concession was most definitely not a concession. What it was was a meaningless diversion to allow some of the Tory Remainers to feel a bit better about themselves when they voted with the government later in the afternoon.
‘So this isn’t a concession, is it?’ Ken Clarke had observed.
Jones had smiled wanly. He didn’t know how to put this any plainer. All that was on offer was a vote on a deal or no deal. With just a couple of minutes to debate it. Just as Theresa May had promised in her Lancaster House speech. Parliament could either accept whatever bad deal the government managed to negotiate with the EU or it could jump off a cliff by going straight to World Trade Organisation rules.
‘But for a vote to be meaningful,’ Labour’s Chuka Umunna pointed out, ‘parliament must be able to send the government back to the EU to renegotiate’.
A howl escaped Jones’s lips. That was precisely why there wasn’t going to be a meaningful vote. How many more times did he have to repeat himself? If he had made a concession, and Jones was certain he hadn’t, then it had been to allow a meaningless meaningful vote. A vote whose only meaning was in its absence of meaning. And yet it was a vote that was enough to assuage the consciences of any Tory Remainers who had been considering voting against the government.
With every other arm of government seemingly either confused or making up policy on the hoof on a daily basis, it was perhaps no surprise that chancellor Philip Hammond appeared to be doing the same in his spring budget. That, at least, was the kindest explanation of why he might have forgotten the Tory party manifesto promise not to raise national insurance contributions.
* * *
The Undertaker’s budget brings death, taxes then a crazy kamikaze attack
8 MARCH 2017
He’d come to praise the economy. But while he was there he might as well also bury it. They didn’t call him Phil ‘The Undertaker’ Hammond for nothing. This was to be the Undertaker’s last spring budget. Just as well, as he didn’t really have anything much to say. Not that it would stop him from taking his time in not saying it. Seldom has a chancellor been on his feet for so long and said so little.
With prime minister’s questions over, the Undertaker lurched towards the dispatch box. ‘The economy has shown robust growth, the deficit is down and the labour market is strong,’ he said. At this point, he paused and scratched his head. If everything was going so well, why the hell was the country leaving the EU? Best not to ask that sort of question. Way too far above his pay grade. If the country wanted to bury itself, the least he could do was give it a proper send-off.
‘We can’t rest on our past achievements,’ the Undertaker went on. No one could argue with that, as there hadn’t been many to rest on. The growth forecasts might have been better than last autumn but they were still well down on this time the previous year. Ten minutes in and with nothing of any interest said, a few heads started to go down on the Tory benches.
Time for a gag. The bereaved always appreciated a little humour. Nothing too funny, mind. No danger of that. ‘The last Labour government,’ he said. ‘They don’t call it the last Labour government for nothing,’ he explained. Theresa May squeezed out a forced laugh. The Undertaker beamed with pleasure. He hadn’t had that good a reaction since his double cremation gag in Croydon back in 1998.
The Undertaker droned on. And on. He liked the sound of his own voice even if no one else did. A funeral address had never been so funereal. Never before had the rich paid so much in tax. The Tory backbenchers didn’t look entirely pleased by that, but the Undertaker was quick to reassure them. Think about it this way: the rich had been earning more and more while everyone else was going broke. A celebration of inequality.
Social care. He supposed he had better say something even though there wasn’t much to say. Who cared if a f
ew old people croaked? More work for funeral directors. Every cloud and all that … Sure he’d bung them an extra £2 billion. But only over three years. It wasn’t nearly enough but the opposition was too feeble to do anything about it. Besides, it would serve the country right. A hard Brexit was a gonna fall and the body count would rise.
But the Undertaker was damned if he was going to pay for other people’s funeral costs. The self-employed could pay for the social care bill. It’s about time those freeloaders paid their fair share of national insurance contributions. Theresa urgently tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Psst,’ she said. ‘We promised not to increase NICs at the last election.’ The Undertaker picked up a copy of the manifesto and crossed out the relevant section. Sorted.
And that was it. Everything was pretty much as expected. Wage increases were offset by cuts to in-work benefits and rising inflation. The continuous beep of the cardiograph was music to his ears. The country was flatlining. As was the Commons after 50 minutes of nothingness. One last gag and he was done. ‘One day we might have driverless cars,’ he observed. ‘And the party opposite knows all about being driverless.’ Some MPs nearly laughed. It was a toss-up whether they would rather be in a car with no driver or a hearse being driven by a dozy funeral director.
Responding to a budget is one of the toughest gigs of the parliamentary year and most opposition leaders hastily scribble a few notes while the chancellor is on his feet. Jeremy Corbyn made none. He had his speech already written and he was determined to stick to the script. Only it was more of a rant than a speech.
‘This was a budget of utter complacency,’ he shouted, his voicing ramping up to volume 11, ‘utter complacency about the crisis facing our public services …’ The louder he shouted about the evils of the Tories without bothering to address a single issue raised by the chancellor, the less anyone was inclined to listen.