The Brexit crowd are right to smell a rat. In any great national debate a columnist may feel tempted to go beyond openly rooting for one side. Rooting for one side is acceptable, of course. Though some Brexiteer readers do struggle with the idea it could be legitimate for a columnist to dis-agree with the verdict of a referendum, I will merrily insist that the word ‘Comment’ at the top of a page allows for the expression of an opinion.
But what if the columnist detects a possible conspiracy to help his own side win? And, further, suspects that for the plan to work, it would be better not to write about it for the time being? Am I (if I am that journalist) on the side of the general reader who wants to know what’s happening, or the side of those I may agree with but whose interests lie in silence?
I prefer the simple view that we should tell it as it is. So, with apologies to fellow Remainers who may accuse me of letting the cat out of the bag, I must tell you that this business of a ‘transitional’ or ‘implementation’ period after Britain has formally left the EU — the plan that Theresa May endorsed in Florence last week — strikes me as carrying a secret threat to Leavers’ hopes: a threat Remainers should not disclose yet.
Were I a Machiavellian Remainer I would be telling fellow Remainers (quietly, lest we be overheard) something like this:
‘Guys, each of the steps on our journey must look like common sense when taken in isolation. Theresa has just taken the first: she has made a case it’s really very hard to resist, arguing that (1) more time is needed for the final terms of Brexit to be shaped (obviously true).
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