I’ve got sympathy with those tempted to tell the Brussels elite to stuff their Brexit deal. Quite a few of my relatives and friends feel a two-fingered salute is the appropriate response to demands for £39 billion and what they see as the naked instrumentalisation of the Irish border.
They listen to Emmanuel Macron and European leaders drip disdain on the British electorate for exercising a right to leave the Union afforded to all member states in EU law, watch Jean-Claude Juncker’s weird hair-fluffing antics, and read about top German MEP Elmar Brok’s dodgy scheme to profit from European Parliament tours. They think Theresa May has made a pig’s ear of the negotiations, and watch her struggle to explain her own flagship policy. They think Government should have prepared properly for No Deal from the start, rather than letting the Treasury organise a Whitehall ‘go slow’. They see MPs who voted for a referendum, promised to respect the result, and then voted to trigger Article 50, now demanding No Deal is taken off the table.
Even though I have been relatively sanguine about No Deal, I think they’re wrong.
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