Former Crime Minister, Theresa May, had pronounced herself ‘disappointed’ with Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal. Mostly because it’s her deal but with a tweak or two.
Out goes the dreaded Irish border backstop, to be replaced with something almost identical, but not called a backstop.
The biggest difference is that the front page now reads “My big brand new Brexit deal, by Boris Johnson, aged 55 ⅓”.
“I have to say, I’m deeply disappointed,” remarked May in that once familiar Stephen Hawking meets fingers down a blackboard voice. “Let me be totally clear: this is MY deal, my record breaking thrice rejected deal, and that grinning idiot Johnson is taking the credit.”
The faintest hint of emotion in her robotic speech betrayed just how deeply hurt she was.
But will she vote for what is, after all, her deal, or vote against, out of spite at her successor?
“I’m not revealing that,” she grated. “But let me just say this: a majority in favour of this deal is highly unlikely indeed.”
Arlene Foster and get DUP chumps won’t vote for May 3.1 either, as ditching the original backstop simply throws Northern Ireland further under the bus. NI gets the worst of both worlds, becoming neither part of the UK nor of the EU. Arlene may like to foster sectarian violence, but she won’t encourage it in public. Yet.
The ERG are harder to predict. Their inclination is to bite the hand that feeds them, but this might be their last opportunity to get the Brexit they have demanded for the last 45 years. Or they may instead follow the lead of Nigel Farage.
True to form, Farage has flipflopped. He backed Boris’ deal and 31 October exit right up to the moment it was agreed, before demanding another extension. Who is the true master of Brexit?
Brexit means Brexit. But since nobody can agree whether this is true, Theresa May will probably be disappointed for a very long time.