Theresa May: Leader or liar?

The answer to that should be obvious after she announced that, despite having promised a debate on progress in making her Brexit deal more acceptable to both Parliament and the European Union on February 26 – and a new “meaningful vote” the following day, she is reneging.

She said she does not have a reworked withdrawal agreement to bring back to Parliament, and her negotiating team will be back in Europe on Tuesday – so there can be no “meaningful vote” the following day.

She said a vote on or before March 12 would still make it possible to leave the EU by the March 29 deadline. That’s assuming that Parliament supports any deal she brings forward, of course.

(March 12 is the deadline for a meaningful vote because it has to take place before the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s spring statement the following day.)

She put down demands for an extension of Article 50 – the EU rule that triggered the countdown to the UK’s departure – claiming that deferring the point of decision on a deal doesn’t change the fact that the decision has to be made, and ignoring the fact that a deferral might make it possible to get a better deal, after her own remarkable lack of interest in doing so.

And she avoided the question of what she would do if she loses the “meaningful vote” in mid-March, saying: “Why is it that people are always trying to look for the next thing after the next thing after the next thing?”

The answer is obvious: Because the economic future of the UK is at stake and we have a prime minister who simply doesn’t seem to care.

Mrs May’s attitude seems to confirm Matthew Parris’s assessment of her as “the Death Star of British politics”:

“She’s not normal. She’s extraordinary. Extraordinarily uncommunicative; extraordinarily rude in the way she blanks people, ideas and arguments.”

This much we can see in her announcement and response to the questions on it.

She won’t accept that delaying Article 50 makes sense – but then, if we accept that she has deliberately run down the clock, we can see that such a delay would undo all her effort.

She won’t accept that people are concerned about what might happen if her deal is rejected because her focus is on forcing us to accept something we all know is worthless.

We were promised more than we could expect in our life as citizens of the EU; we are being offered less. So Mr Parris’s further criticisms ring true:

“Theresa May… is the Death Star of modern British politics. She’s the theory of anti-matter, made flesh. She’s a political black hole because nothing, not even light, can escape. Ideas, beliefs, suggestions, objections, inquiries, proposals, projects, loyalties, affections, trust, whole careers, real men and women, are sucked into the awful void that is Downing Street – and nothing ever comes out: no answers, only a blank so blank that it screams.

“Warnings are delivered to her, and ignored. Plans are run by her, unacknowledged. Messages are sent to her, unanswered. She has become the unperson of Downing Street: the living embodiment of a closed door.”

And we all know it. Matthew Norman, in The Independent, gave the situation a comic spin – possibly on the basis that we have to laugh, to keep us all from tears:

“Her intent has been transparent for a while. She means to keep pulling that vote, as she did just before and after Christmas, until 28 March.

“The only anticipated variant here concerns the scapegoat. Until now, under the curious misapprehension that he is the prime minister, she has blamed Jeremy Corbyn.

“With that beginning to stale, potential rap-takers for the non-votes ahead are rumoured to include the late Bishop Abel Muzorewa, the later Clara Bow, Norse god of trickery Loki, Crystal Palace winger Wilfried Zaha, Joan of Arc, Inspector Blake (“Blakey”) from On The Buses, and Taylor Swift.

“Finally on Brexit Day Eve, according to this devish [sic] scheme, she’ll put the deal to a House of Commons with no collective choice but to pass it to escape the yawning abyss.

“The abyss is in excellent company. Who isn’t yawning as the immovable object of crushing tedium grapples the unstoppable force of abject terror?”

Either might be better than the emotion most of us are feeling – frustration:

(The fact that Brexit is due to happen at 11pm on March 29 only strengthen’s Mr Chown’s point.)

https://twitter.com/cliodiaspora/status/1099662865739468804

https://twitter.com/ToryFibs/status/1099666380838916103

My point of view? I have a lot of differences with Nicola Sturgeon but she makes a good point here:

Is it possible? I don’t know.

I do know that it is every MP’s duty to prevent us being dragged into disaster by someone who turned out to be a liar, not a leader.

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