Animal Farm

Last night, emanating a smugness and swagger often found often in victory, Mrs May stood in Downing Street.  She delivered a statement worthy of Animal Farm.  She trotted out all the phrases about how we were taking back control.   

To be generous to her, perhaps she hasn’t read the full text of what Mr Olly Robbins had produced.  Specifically, the agreement will lock the UK into EU customs union and EU law.  That means being subject to the ECJ, not the UK courts.   

So the UK will not, according to the agreement, have the ability to regulate its own economy.  It will not, while caught in the trap of a never ending implementation phase with no end date, be able to form its own trade agreements.  It will lose out on the real opportunities that leaving the EU affords the UK.   

Mr Barmier must have been having the party of his life last night.    

But it was her words at 1:20 in her statement that sent a shiver down my back.  Up till now it had been very simple.  Brexit Means Brexit.  No deal is better than a bad deal.  These were her stock in trade phrases.  Her mantra.  But at 1:20 into her statement that changed.  That’s no longer the script.  What she said was it is my deal “or leave with no deal or no Brexit at all.”     

How that squares what her other often used phrase of “deliver on the referendum” I do not know. The referendum was very simple.  Parliament gave up its role and asked the people to decide, “did we want to stay or leave the European Union?”.  The majority said leave.  So parliament, having given the people the final say in a peoples vote, it's job now is simple.  Deliver.   

Mrs May may say we are leaving.  But if we are still subject to its rules we haven’t left.  It’s a bit like resigning from a golf club and going back every day, paying your green fees and playing.  Except now you are not a member and have no say in how the place is run but are still subject to its rules and sanctions.  Quite why anyone would do that is any ones guess.   

The whole document can be summed up in just three words.  So quite why it took 2 years to produce the document that she was championing last night is remarkable.  Lay aside the non business like and obviously very civil servant style, its contents could have been written the moment Mr May entered Downing Street.   It's what she has believed all along.  It's what she has manoeuvred to bring about.  It is what she is going to deliver. 

These three words?  We’re not leaving.