Theresa in Wonderland

Have you noticed that whenever Theresa May answers a question - it doesn't matter what the question, or what the rest of her answer is - she always starts her answer with "No"!  An interviewer, Corbyn, or some other MP, puts a fact or series of facts to her, and the immediate answer always starts with "No."  What this signifies is the extent to which May lives in her own world, a world in which the facts, and reality of everyone else does not exist, and May can choose to her her own facts, as part of her own fantasy world, all summed up in this continuous rejection of everyone else's reality, by this one tiny word, "No."

A clear manifestation comes with May's approach to Brexit.  We all knew that her negotiating bluff, from the beginning of "No deal is better than a bad deal." was a totally meaningless gesture, because no British politician was going to walk Britain away from the EU with no deal, as that would be catastrophic.  But, May continued with this fiasco, as though in her private world, no one was aware of the emptiness of that threat.  When The EU, unimpressed with such an empty threat called her bluff, she was forced, as on so many occasions, to simply capitulate, whilst again constructing her own reality, in which, "Nothing has changed, nothing has changed."

Then having capitulated, thereby alienated her hardline Bretremist wing, and those voters that back them, as well as the DUP, and at the same time alienating her pro-Remain wing, with no possible chance of winning the backing of sufficient Labour or other MP's, she constructed her own reality once more, in which somehow, she would get the deal through parliament.  When reality bit, rather than facing it, she simply avoided it by withdrawing the vote.  In order to try to square actual reality with her reality, she then attempted to use the same failed bluff once more.  She told Brextremists the risk of opposing her bad deal was No Brexit, whilst telling everyone else that the risk of opposing her deal was No Deal, as though in her own little world, she could have these discussions with each separate group without the other hearing what she was saying!

On Andrew Marr today, she took that to an even more ridiculous extreme.  She began by setting out the options as being her deal, no deal, or no Brexit.  For the Brextremists, the No Deal alternative would be accepted thank you very much, so its no cause to back her deal; for the opponents of Brexit, the No Brexit alternative would be accepted than you very much.  What both can agree on, along with a vast majority of the country, and of parliament, is that her deal is not an attractive option to either.  Some Brextremists have said openly they would prefer No Brexit to May's Deal, and for many opponents of Brexit, allowing a No Deal Brexit to play out as an alternative to May's Deal is a better alternative, because a) May will never go through with it, but b) if by some accident, if were to occur, the consequence would be so dire that Britain would have to apply on an emergency basis for readmittance, the issue would be dead for ever, and the Tories would have destroyed themselves for a generation, if not forever.

Yet, when it came to discuss the immediate circumstance of her deal being voted down, May dropped one of these choices she had only minutes before described, and said, that if her deal was voted down, then on March 29th. there would be a No Deal Brexit.  This is like the Queen of Hearts or Donald Trump, for whom words mean whatever she chooses them to mean at any one time, and what she chooses them to mean is only what fits her argument at that particular moment.  It is totally fantasy world politics.  Once again, when Marr put it to her that the country was divided between half the country that wanted to Remain, and half that wanted No Deal, May responded with her ritual "No,", before continuing to describe how she had been out on the doorsteps over the last week, where everyone had told her that MP's should be just backing her deal.  But, again, that is May's reality, and not the actual reality.  All of the available evidence and polling shows that only a small minority of the population back her deal, and that is reflected in parliament.

That is true in respect of specific aspects of Brexit too.  If we take Ireland, the Brextremists, as well as May have continued to push the line that no one wants a hard border in Ireland, and so if Brexit goes ahead, no one will introduce one.  That is the Brextremists case for rejecting the backstop.  The EU, in trying to accomodate May have facilitated that fiction.  The truth is, of course, that if Britain pushes ahead with Brexit, with Britain being outside the Customs Union and Single Market, then there are only two options.  Either, Northern Ireland leaves Britain and becomes a part of a United Ireland, which a sizeable hardcore of Unionists will oppose violently, or else a hard border is erected between North and South.  The EU would have to erect and police a border, suing the EU's newly reinforced Border Security Force, and ultimately by its new EU Army.  They would have to do so to protect the single market, from external goods that do not meet the requirements of the Single Market, and Customs Union from coming across the border.  The EU would have to provide suitable support for the Irish economy to offset the immediate impact upon it, but the Northern ireland economy would be devastated.

But, Britain would also have to implement a hard border too, because an open border would be an invitation for EU migrants to simply use the Common Travel Area to by-pass the limitations on free movement, and thereby to gain access to the UK.  So, the idea that just because no one wants a border to be erected, none would be so, is ridiculous, because Brexit would mean that such a border will inevitably be erected.

The same Wonderland politics is being played out with the No Deal Brexit preparations.  Its a combination of a Christmas pantomime, Alice in Wonderland, and a Whitehall farce.  Having failed to bluff the EU, then having failed to bluff parliament into voting for her deal, May tries a cak-handed attempt to pretend that she really is prepared to go through with No Deal.  So, at the last minute, the government hires a firm that no one has heard of, other than its creditors who are trying to get millions of pounds back from it, from previous failed, shady dealings, which apparently has never sailed a single boat, has no boats lined up to do the work the government is proposing to give it tens of millions to operate on its behalf to bring in emergency supplies, like some kind of self-inflicted Dunkirk relief operation, and which in any case, has no adequate harbour facilities in Ramsgate, where the non-existent boats are to dock!  Then the government employs one single boat, hired from another country, to carry out dredging work on Ramsgate harbour, but which will not, in any case, be completed until after Brexit Day.

The Road Haulage Association, in any case, point out that 12,000 lorris a day go through Dover, and any facilities at Ramsgate, which then have a sea crossing about five times as far as Dover-Calais, would be totally inadequate.  The government has responded by carrying out another emergency training exercise, therefore, where it has taken over an airfield to use as a lorry park, but where this training exercise involves situating just 100 lorries on it, which hardly seems worth bothering compared to the potential for 12,000 additional lorried, each and every day to add to a growing sea of lorries going nowhere in a hurry!

The same thing could be seen with the NHS.  Health Minister Matt Hancock appeared on Sunday morning TV to try to calm fears about the potential for medicines to run out with a No Deal Brexit.  And, when asked about the 100,000 NHS vacancies, many of them now being caused by EU workers going back home, he could only reply with vagueness.  He told us that 30,000 of those vacancies were filled by agency workers, which rather begs the question of why they are being employed via agencies rather than the NHS directly, given that the agencies will charge far more than the wages of the workers.  Part of the answer, of course, is that the agencies will have recruited those workers directly from overseas, and those workers will be again some of the first to leave the country in the event of Brexit leaving the NHS in even greater crisis.  Hancock told us that we need to recruit and train many more British nurses, doctors and so on.  Absolutely true, but that has been true for decades, and instead the Tories have cut NHS funding in real terms, they got rid of the funding for nurse training, and there is nothing in any of their current actions that suggests that they are going to be able to even begin training the staff required to fill these vacancies any time soon, let alone to cover a crisis that erupts in just two months time.

That this totally shambolic government, carrying through a totally reactionary and idiotic policy of Brexit, with such a degree of incompetence is, despite all of that ahead of Labour in the polls, with that lead apparently growing, simply highlights just how much worse the position of Labour's leadership on Brexit is and has been over the last two years.  Current surveys show that if Brexit goes ahead, Labour stands to lose up to 16 points in the polls, as one of the main reasons for its new recruits and supporters joining has been the prospect of stopping Brexit.  Had Labour been campaigning on a principled basis to stop Brexit, for the last two years, not only would Labour have been miles ahead in the polls by now, but Brexit would effectively have been killed off.  Its not too late for Corbyn and the Labour leadership to change course, though they have lost considerable ground and trust.

Labou should continue to demand a General Election to stop Brexit, but they must make clear that they will fight that election on the basis of stopping Brexit, of making the revoking of Article 50, the first thing they do on taking office.