A busy and bizarre two days following the release of the draft working agreement, as the Brexit drama reaches a catastrophically low point without ever quite resulting in a defeat of the government in the House. Presumably no non-confidence motion is forthcoming because no one is quite prepared to deal with the fallout, divisions within the Labour opposition being nearly as dire as those within the propped-up-by-the-Irish-Unionists governing Tories.
The prime minister surviving by sheer dogged determination. Though not necessarily for long, as a leadership review can be triggered by 15% of the parliamentary Conservative party writing letters to the backbench ”1922 Committee” requesting it. Twenty-two of the requisite 48 members have now publicly claimed to have done so. One has, in fact, posted his amateurish letter on Twitter, leading to well justified comments on his lack of formal writing skills, and somewhere his former English teacher is hoping to remain anonymous. But how many non-exhibitionists have also submitted letters?
There have been seven resignations so far, including two cabinet ministers, one of whom was Dominic Raab, the Brexit Secretary. Raab had only been Secretary for Exiting the EU since July, replacing the cheerful but terminally idle David Davis, whose Permanent Secretary [deputy minister] Simon Fraser, who has since left for the private sector, said of him today: “David Davis was a terrible Brexit Secretary. He could hardly be bothered to go to Brussels & rapidly lost respect there. Preposterous for him now to suggest that EU deliberately delayed negotiations. They spent months waiting for him to engage”. No sour grapes there, either - plenty of corroborating evidence.
Some entertainment value in all this, despite the generally depressing state of affairs. It seems the infamously backstabbing Michael Gove, known for his lack of loyalty and ill-concealed ambition, was offered the job and refused, with an unknown senior Brexiteer being quoted as saying: “Michael’s wrestling bouts with his conscience constitute the longest winning streak in British sporting history”.
Meanwhile dire, and all too probable warnings in the press about the UK’s coming economic woes have been including exaggerated, and simply untrue statements about the pound sterling having crashed or plummeted. The pound is noticeably above the low point vs the Canadian dollar for the last 30 days (as well as last 90). Similar profile with the US dollar and the euro. Have noticed much hype in the commentary of economists on similar minuscule movements in the past, and can only guess that this is what passes for high drama in the grey life of number crunchers. But sound and fury signifying not nearly enough for us to scale up that portion of our lives spent in the UK.
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