Well, they’re back. Tony Blair, Stephen Kinnock and their
moribund troupe of Remoaners are popping up everywhere, determined to
thoroughly piss on the chips of all who wish to release us from the deadly
chokehold of the EU. Project Fear, despite several charges on many fronts did
little to dampen our ardour and if anything strengthened the resolve to leave;
especially when George Osborne’s dire predictions failed to come true.
When economic Armageddon didn’t materialise and the drip,
drip, drip of bad business news items was regularly cancelled out by prominent
figures breaking ranks and declaring bonanzas a different tack was required. So
they waded in with charges of racism. Shame on you, they cried, tish and fie
and away with your xenophobia. Surely, they reasoned, if we malign their
desires for sovereignty as little more than open hatred for other
nationalities, they will cease to clamour for independence.
It didn’t work. So they said: ah, but we can already
control our borders anyway; we just choose not to. And think of the farmers,
they alarumed – with no easterners to pull their carrots the crops will rot in
the fields and a pestilence will stalk the land. Bollocks, we said. But, but they
sound-bit back: ‘nobody voted to become poorer’. But, but, we said, we don’t
care. Bummer, they said, we need to find another chink in their armour of
indifference to our pro-supranational zeal.
So, with a stirring Teutonic chorus of Ode to Joy – for let
us not be fooled that the EU is anything other than the Fourth Reich – on came
the spear carriers and assorted supporting cast, with their handy one-liners to
pour scorn on the very notion that the UK could even survive in any civilised
fashion outside the work camps of greater Germany. Barnier, Verhofstadt, Juncker,
Merkel and Uncle Tom Macron and all, merrily singing – for once – to the same
tune.
Then came the disparaging claims on social media that, ‘funny,
you don’t hear many leavers these days, do you?’ Accusations of buyers’ remorse
flew thick and thicker as they challenged Brexiteers to prove they knew exactly
why they had voted leave; we told them what we’d always told them and poll
after poll showed a majority in the country was heartily sick of the whole
debate and just wanted to get on with departure. ‘But how shall we leave?’ they
asked, ‘hard or soft’. We just leave, we said.
And so, finally, slowly, some toe-dipping into the murky
water of negotiation began, at which the EU team scoffed; whatever you want, we’re
not letting it happen. We’ll walk, said the team; you can’t said the enemy.
Well, offer us something, said we; nope, said they. Then Tony Blair began hearing
the voices again; the messianic mania is strong in this one. Look, he opined,
but nobody was listening.
They were too busy deploying Project Pity. The Tory Party
is in disarray; they are briefing against each other; there are leadership
challenges... the latest attempt to pour scorn is to go around telling any news
outlet that will listen, that they feel sorry for Theresa May. Poor Tess, they
say, she has no feeling but despair, no empathy save that for a faded old flag,
no allies, no friends; beset by a sea of troubles. I bet she wishes she could
turn the clock back; what a shame the new Doctor Who has already been cast.
