Charles Moore

I am in a small minority in turning off the news when it is not about Brexit. The slow, agonising process fascinatingly brings out what people in public life really think. Do they care about representative government, or not? My estimate is that 60 per cent of the House of Commons do — while differing about exactly how to apply the principles — and about 40 per cent are perfectly indifferent, seeking their own personal or ideological advantage. By the standards of most legislatures in history, this is a more impressive proportion than people recognise. This article is an extract from Charles Moore's Spectator notes, available in this week's magazine.

Matthew Parris (2 February) attacks those who warn that failing to leave the EU would cause civil unrest: ‘…there is something deeply unConservative about this tack. A proper Conservative does not pray in aid of his argument by citing criminal elements that may otherwise be unleashed.’ Broadly, that sounds right, although frustrating a major democratic mandate is always a serious provocation. So what does Matthew think of the following? ‘I will tell you what I think playing with fire is: blundering into the politics of Northern Ireland with a policy which is sometimes clueless and sometimes delinquent with a can of petrol in one hand and a box of matches in the other. That is playing with fire. That is what we are in danger of doing.

The House of Commons does work better than it seems to, I promise you. When a big subject comes up, it spends weeks, months, even years, posturing and sparring, but it has a way of working out when a choice is truly important. Brexit has taken years, and is truly important. We saw the first signs of this realisation dawning on Parliament when it rejected Mrs May’s original deal so decisively. We saw the second signs on Tuesday night. As that series of covert Remain amendments — most notably Cooper-Boles — fell, a pattern became apparent. Enough MPs now understand that if the institution of parliament is ever to command respect again, Brexit must happen, and the minimally acceptable way in which it must happen is that the permanent Irish backstop goes.

What to do about the coming shortage of green groceries of which several supermarkets warned yet again this week if there is a no-deal Brexit on 29 March? I am just old enough to remember when fresh fruit and veg were in short supply at this time of year. People used to know how to store things to mitigate the problem: apples would be carefully laid out on straw-strewn shelves. We ate lots of root vegetables and not much greenery. If ever you saw a strawberry out of season it came, for some reason, from Israel. Perhaps it is time for a Brexit recipe book, like those comforting wartime rationing ones full of bright ideas for dull things. In our part of the south coast we have racier ideas.

What to do about the coming shortage of green groceries of which several supermarkets warned yet again this week if there is a no-deal Brexit on 29 March? I am just old enough to remember when fresh fruit and veg were in short supply at this time of year. People used to know how to store things to mitigate the problem: apples would be carefully laid out on straw-strewn shelves. We ate lots of root vegetables and not much greenery. If ever you saw a strawberry out of season it came, for some reason, from Israel. Perhaps it is time for a Brexit recipe book, like those comforting wartime rationing ones full of bright ideas for dull things. In our part of the south coast we have racier ideas.

The House of Commons does work better than it seems to, I promise you. When a big subject comes up, it spends weeks, months, even years, posturing and sparring, but it has a way of working out when a choice is truly important. Brexit has taken years, and is truly important. We saw the first signs of this realisation dawning on Parliament when it rejected Mrs May’s original deal so decisively. We saw the second signs on Tuesday night. As that series of covert Remain amendments — most notably Cooper-Boles — fell, a pattern became apparent. Enough MPs now understand that if the institution of parliament is ever to command respect again, Brexit must happen, and the minimally acceptable way in which it must happen is that the permanent Irish backstop goes.

This column has laughed before at the BBC’s satirical wit in having a slot called ‘Reality Check’ on Brexit. If ‘Reality Check’ were serious, it would ask every MP each time one appeared: ‘How do you intend to carry out parliament’s promise, both before and after the referendum, to implement its result?’ Orders from Davos on the Today programme on Tuesday: Roland Rudd, a PR man, tells MPs to ‘put country before party’. He does not say which country he has in mind. He particularly gives this instruction to Conservative MPs, despite being an active member of the Labour party and having Lord Mandelson as godfather to one of his children.

The scale of the government’s defeat on Mrs May’s deal is, as everyone keeps saying, amazing — yet also not. Mrs May had been told again and again by Tory MPs who were not natural rebels that they could not accept her plan, partly because of the money, but chiefly because of the backstop trap. She just did not seem to take it in. When 117 of her party voted no confidence in her a month ago, she still did not pick up the message, but instead turned to trade union leaders, Labour MPs and potential Remainer rebels to make conciliatory noises on the other side of the argument. So 118 Tories quite logically voted against her solution in parliament on Tuesday night.

This week, Universities UK and the Russell Group, seemingly speaking on behalf of the whole sector, produced an Open Letter from distinguished vice-chancellors. ‘It is no exaggeration to suggest,’ said the letter, ‘that this [leaving the EU without a deal] would be an academic, cultural and scientific setback from which it would take decades to recover.’ Actually, it would be as exaggerated as a Donald Trump tweet. The detail of this is brilliantly demonstrated by Noel Malcolm in an analysis for Briefings for Brexit. The bit that made me burst out laughing was Sir Noel’s comparison of a similar Open Letter, from 103 university vice-chancellors, just before the referendum vote in 2016, with this week’s effort.

Behind the incident of Anna Soubry being called a Nazi by a small group of Leave yobs beside College Green lies a classic Brexit sequence of events. For many months now, Remain protestors have infested that area. Their numbers are small, but they are well trained to insert themselves and their banners into relevant live television interviews, and have been praised by the Guardian for doing so. Never have I seen the BBC trying to exclude them from its shots, even when the protestors’ interventions have made it quite difficult for those being interviewed. Sometimes BBC interviewers have gestured on air towards the protestors as evidence of strong pro-Remain public feeling. Often BBC cameras have used cutaways of them to punctuate news items, to make the same point.

Earlier this month, the Quorn and Cottesmore hunts took separate votes on merging. The Quorn voted for, the Cottesmore against. So the merger will not take place. The fact that the Quorn wants a merger is, given its history, astonishing. For a century and a half, it was the epitome of fast, grand hunting — with too much ‘leaping’ for hunting purists, but any amount of swagger. Melton Mowbray was to hunting what St Moritz is to skiing. The place was full of louche, rich, grand persons, chancers, hucksters, poules de luxe, all so well satirised by Surtees. There the future Edward VIII met Mrs Simpson. People would take a ‘box’ nearby for the season or come up from London by train. More than 80 per cent of the subscribers were non-residential.

If I were a Tory MP, I would be worried by the timing of this vote, but, given that it is happening, I would think the following: 1. She's trying to bounce me by making me vote tonight. 2. This is the last chance for a year, because Theresa May is rule-bound and not one to take hints. 3. I do not, in fact, have confidence in her, and so, since I'm being asked, I should say so. 4. Although I do think she is sincere in wishing to deliver what people voted for, we have learnt that she doesn't know how to do this. We urgently need a Prime Minister who does. I am conscious that there is no guarantee that my vote would bring what I want, but I would reluctantly prefer the uncertainty of a contest to the certainty of Mrs May in Downing Street.