Fateful Days
It has only become clear since the famous Chequers meeting in August that Mrs May is now conducting a single-handed negotiation with the EU without any consultation with the Cabinet, but expecting it to sign up to whatever she and the EU come up with.
The drafting work is in the hands of a 43-year old civil servant called Oliver (“Olly”) Robbins, who having passed his whole 20-year career in the Treasury, had absolutely no knowledge of the workings of the EU, of business, and of international trade. This description applies also to Mrs May (and to the vast majority of the senior grades of the Civil Service).
As a direct consequence, the pair of them have produced a series of drafts, starting with the Chequers plan, notable only for their disadvantage to Britain and their practical unworkability.
Parallels with 1940: Resignation of Prime Minister Chamberlain
We British have to recognise that because of Prime Minister May’s actions and inaction, Britain is now (November 2nd 2018) facing a catastrophe. The nearest recent parallel is April-May 1940. During the Commons debate on May 8th, on the debacle in Norway (April to June 1940), David Lloyd George, Prime Minister in the second, victorious, part of the 1st World War, and for three further years, later in 1931 becoming “Father of the House”, spoke these words:
“There is nothing which can contribute more to victory in this war than [the Prime Minister] should give up the seals of Office.”
And this was before the Germans invaded France, Belgium and Holland on May 10th.
The Irish Border Issue
Prime Minister May has allowed Britain to be played for a patsy over the Irish border issue, a totally manufactured grievance by the Irish government, backed energetically by chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier to obtain further EU leverage in the negotiations. It is clear that Mrs May and her principal advisor, Oliver Robbins, neither having any prior knowledge of the EU, nor speaking any EU language, have brought Britain to the point where either we accept that the Republic of Ireland will not carry out its bounden duty to inspect UK goods coming from Northern Ireland and collect any duties payable, i.e. the procedure at every other EU-nonEU border now in existence, including in the Republic of Ireland itself for goods coming from outside the EU, OR collapse the negotiations now and prepare seriously to trade with the EU as we currently trade with non-EU countries like Australia and the USA.
For this we need a Prime Minister for whom the Churchillian expression “Action this Day” will be their guiding principle.
When Churchill took over as Prime Minister on May 10th, two days after Lloyd George’s speech, there was no election for Conservative Party leader, nor a General Election. Nor is there any need today for either of these two things. Only 37 Conservative MPs out of 394 voted against Chamberlain on a motion of no-confidence at the end of the Commons debate on May 9th, but he resigned nonetheless.
Mrs May, who has manifestly lost the confidence of all sections of the Conservative party, and of the country, should do the same now before she lands the country with more crippling obligations.
