Matthew Parris

There’s a famous (or infamous) method of negotiation or interrogation called ‘Good cop, bad cop’. You’re probably familiar with the idea. An individual whose cooperation is sought is approached by an apparently reasonable negotiator whose friendly advice is to co-operate because if he doesn’t then his colleague, who has a nasty temper, may fly into a rage — in which case our friend cannot answer for what this dreadful fellow might do. The good cop holds himself out as anxious to protect the individual from somebody much worse than himself. He does not of course condone this person’s behaviour in any way, but he’s sadly beyond his control.

There’s a famous (or infamous) method of negotiation or interrogation called ‘Good cop, bad cop’. You’re probably familiar with the idea. An individual whose cooperation is sought is approached by an apparently reasonable negotiator whose friendly advice is to co-operate because if he doesn’t then his colleague, who has a nasty temper, may fly into a rage — in which case our friend cannot answer for what this dreadful fellow might do. The good cop holds himself out as anxious to protect the individual from somebody much worse than himself. He does not of course condone this person’s behaviour in any way, but he’s sadly beyond his control.

When intelligent, informed and rational people make a choice that onlookers can see confounds their own declared interests, we are wise to look to psychiatry for an explanation. This is where my thoughts turn, now that Tory Brexiteers have conspired to block Theresa May’s road from Chequers to the deal the Commons so spectacularly rejected this week. Until the last minute, I hesitated to accept the Tories’ European Research Group would join this rebellion. Cautiously I inserted ‘probably’, ‘by all accounts’ and ‘apparently’ into every column I drafted. That hardline Brexiteers would in the end want to kill the Prime Minister’s deal didn’t make sense. We Remainers have been unable to believe our luck.

It was late, and a friend and I were left to talk Brexit. He’s a keen and convinced Tory Brexiteer MP but to stay friends we have tended to steer off the topic. This, however, felt like a moment to talk. The conversation taught me nothing about Brexit, something about him, and a lot about myself and the strain of Conservatism I now realise I’m part of — and which is part of me. Oddly, then, this column is not really about Brexit, but about trusting the people. I don’t. Never have and never will. Our conversation forced me to confront the fact. My friend knows well enough why I’m a Remainer, but guessed correctly that I’ve puzzled about why he isn’t. I had not quite expected what I heard.

Catching a train last week at London’s St Pancras I encountered a man playing a piano. You can do this at St Pancras: there’s an old Yamaha chained to the ironwork just by the lift serving the upper platforms for Sheffield and Nottingham. The instrument is somewhat out of tune but serviceable, and placed there for anyone who wants to play. The facility is generally respected: it’s not for buskers collecting money but just for pleasure — the player’s pleasure, and that of the random, changing audience who pause, hurry or amble by. I was hurrying yet in no hurry: there was plenty of time. But you just get a bit tense in London sometimes, and hurry for the sake of hurrying. And of late, politics has got me down.

As I write, the sneering at Nick Clegg has started. The first cuckoo I’ve heard in this chorus is calling from the left. Last week Nesrine Malik in the Guardian launched a scornful attack on Mr Clegg’s decision to quit public life in Britain and join Facebook in America. ‘Thanks for nothing,’ she says. I feel sad about the paper Ms Malik writes for. The Guardian took an historic wrong-turning when in 2010 it decided not to be interested in the possibilities for centre/-centre--left co-operation. These days the paper often sounds like the voice of the Labour left: rasping and angry rather than the open-minded and inquisitive liberal voice it once was.

‘Wherever Sir Stafford Cripps has tried to increase wealth and happiness,’ wrote the Conservative Scottish journalist Colm Brogan, ‘grass never grows again.’ But Roundup has its uses. When Brogan made this comment, Sir Stafford was Britain’s postwar ‘austerity’ chancellor of the exchequer, a post he held from 1947 to 1950. Dry as dust, Cripps had rejoined the Labour party only two years previously, having served as ambassador in Moscow, then in Churchill’s war cabinet. A leading voice on the hard left, he had been expelled from Labour for his advocacy of co-operation with communists in 1939, but his judgment had proved shrewd.

If I were Benjamin Netanyahu (and I’m not) I would be thanking whatever gods there be for sending me, at a tricky time, the most useful ally it is possible to imagine in UK politics. To Bibi’s aid has come probably the only man in Britain capable of single--handedly silencing public criticism of the Israeli government’s disturbing new Basic Law, entitled ‘Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People’. If I were a British crusader for the Palestinian cause (and I’m not) I would be cursing whatever gods there be for sending — at a time when it might have been possible to rally critics of this unpleasant eruption of ethno-nationalism in Israeli politics — the most effective British voice available to hamper my argument.

‘The return of Ukip’ declared the headline on our cover story last week. The polling boffin Matthew Goodwin to whose analysis this referred was in fact more careful. Professor Goodwin did argue, however, that the potential may be there for a Ukip revival. So it may. But the figures for new recruits that he cites are modest. The doubt he describes as surrounding Nigel Farage’s chances of a comeback is real. Ukip’s present stance under its latest leader Gerard Batten (who has developed links with the campaign for the disgraced and imprisoned former leader of the English Defence League, Tommy Robinson) looks crazier by the week.

Omissions can be as instructive as inclusions. I noted a curious example in a column Nick Timothy wrote last month for the Daily Telegraph: ‘Why Dominic Grieve’s push for a “meaningful vote” really would mean stopping Brexit.’ Until he left Downing Street, Mr Timothy was jointly principal adviser to Theresa May. He wrote the following: ‘According to ministers, the choice Parliament will face is to leave on the terms negotiated by the government, or leave with no deal. And they are right: the European treaties assert that the withdrawal process can last no longer than two years…’ This is not the case. Mr Timothy seems to have overlooked a key provision laid out in Article 50 of the relevant treaty (my italics): ‘3.