Charles Moore

One could smell a rat in the fact that so many ministers have recently been allowed publicly to break with government policy and condemn ‘no deal’ flat-out, and even threaten resignation. Three ministers co-wrote an article in Tuesday’s Daily Mail (over the undead body of Paul Dacre) in this sense. They would never have dared to do so unless they had been sure that they would go unpunished by the government. If you follow the sequence of how a variety of ministers emerged on this subject, you will see orchestration. Mrs May’s spin doctor, Robbie Gibb, ex-BBC, briefs programmes like Newsnight all the time: the official line was to say how ‘troubling’ the behaviour of the ministers was.

Jeremy Corbyn never ceases to attack Mrs May for trying to run down the clock. She has certainly done that, but she is also quite capable of running up the clock. This she is now doing with her threat of an extension of Article 50. She is like the mouse in the nursery rhyme, with its order reversed. As has been true at least since her disastrous general election of 2017, she will do absolutely anything to avoid a clean break with the EU and keep us in some approximation to the Customs Union. Hickory, dickory, dock: that’s the policy. One could smell a rat — or rather, that mouse — in the fact that so many ministers have recently been allowed publicly to break with government policy and condemn ‘no deal’ flat-out, and even threaten resignation.

Where will these nice Independent Groupies end up? If the SDP example applies, they will wander through the political wilderness, some of them coming to rest in existing parties. All the following were in the SDP. Greg Clark is a Tory cabinet minister. Danny Finkelstein is a Tory peer, excellent journalist and wordsmith to David Cameron. Andrew Cooper, the political strategist, is the Conservative Baron Cooper of Windrush. Adair Turner is a crossbencher peer with a quiverful of business and pro-bono positions. Sir Vince Cable is the leader of the Liberal Democrats. They are all likeable, friendly, able and successful men. Yet all of them have a ‘non-tribal’, EU-centred approach which ultimately makes them honourably ineligible for the struggle of British politics.

The BBC reported on Tuesday that the proposed closure of Honda’s plant at Swindon was largely caused by the prospect of a no-deal Brexit. The collapse of ‘just-in-time’ procedures would do for the factory, it said. That’s odd, I thought as I listened: why would you close a whole factory because of something that might very well not happen? Why not wait five more weeks and find out whether or not it will? Sure enough, a few hours later, Honda’s vice-president for Europe said that ‘It’s not a Brexit-related issue for us, it [the decision to close] is being made on … global-related changes.

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.