Is it finally over? Brexit has been the blockbuster draw in Parliament for so long that many of us struggled to imagine a moment when rows about beastly foreigners wouldn’t do huge box office numbers. Sure, the original gang of heroes who dominated our screens a decade ago —from Boris “Captain Britain” Johnson to Bill “Doctor Strange” Cash — have departed the stage, but the strength of the Brexit Parliamentary Universe had always been the deep well of “characters” who could be brought out to fight the wicked tentacles of Brussels.
On Tuesday, Earth’s Dreariest Heroes were summoned forth once more, to put paid to Keir Starmer’s wicked attempt to sell our birthright in exchange for a measly bit of economic growth. And looking down at them, we realised how bad things have got for the Conservative Party.
It’s not just that they can’t even fill their benches, though it was noticeable that the other three-quarters of the chamber were far busier than the one that the reduced Tories now occupy. But there was an air of defeat around them. Perhaps they’d seen that morning’s poll, putting them in fourth — fourth! — place. Perhaps they’d had premonitions about Kemi Badenoch’s speech.
The prime minister was greeted with considerably more warmth by his own side than he’s experienced in recent days. You couldn’t describe his performance as gripping, but he believed he had plenty to boast about. As he went through the list, he was gently cheered on each point. Opposite him, the Conservative front bench scoffed. When Starmer announced that British tourists would be able to use Europe’s electronic gates at border control, Chris Philp shook his head, appalled at the moral laxity of fellow citizens who would rather submit to filthy foreign e-gates then join a good honest queue like free-born Englishmen.
“I do not have time to run through the list of supportive quotes from businesses,” Starmer said, and behind him Labour MPs made disappointed noises and shouted: “Go on!” He listed them: the FSB, the CBI, the BRC, the FDF and the BCC. You’d want a couple more vowels if you were on Countdown.
He was dismissive of the opposition parties: “If your whole approach to our allies is about striking a pose, you do not get to strike a deal.” At that, Ed Davey smiled: striking a pose can also help you pick up quite a few votes.
Badenoch rose to give her slogan — “When Labour negotiates, Britain loses” — and was greeted by a mighty shout from somewhere on the Labour backbenches: “BORING!” It set the tone. Much of the Conservative leader’s statement was drowned out not by heckles, but just by backbench chatter. It was a total failure to command the chamber. Of course MPs in other parties will try to put you off, but the great parliamentary performers can’t be ignored.
Her biggest problem was strategic: is she really going to promise, at the next election, to undo all this, to bring back queues at borders and stop farmers and fishermen exporting? Is she really arguing, as the US President sucks up to Vladimir Putin, that Nato is all Europe needs for its own defence? “Details matter!” she declared at one point, and the chamber fell about in spontaneous hilarity. “They’re laughing!” she complained, and they were. It was so painful to watch that even Chris “Manspreader” Philp had his knees clenched.
Most significant was the absence of Brexit’s Mr Fantastic, Nigel Farage, the rubbery hero capable of contorting himself into any position. Perhaps he had an unavoidable commitment to sell cryptocurrencies in Singapore, or maybe he simply doesn’t feel his Parliamentary salary justifies turning up more than once a week, but if Farage thought there was political mileage in Brexit, he would have been there.
The statement lasted nearly two hours, but Conservatives began leaving after 40 minutes. It was like watching a performance of Haydn’s Farewell Symphony, where the musicians depart the stage one by one during the final adagio. First to go was Desmond Swayne. If this veteran of so many Brexit battles had no stomach for the fight, who was going to stay? Soon afterwards we realised that Philp too had quit his spot on the frontbench.
As time went on, Starmer began to warm up and articulate arguments he hadn’t made on Monday or in his statement. Yes, the UK was aligning itself to EU rules, but the Conservatives had refused to diverge from them, so we might as well get the benefits of alignment. If the fishing deal was so bad, why had the Tories agreed to an identical deal?
Esther McVey tried to get the old fires going, denouncing the “bitter betrayal of British youth” that is, apparently, represented by allowing them to go and work in the horrid EU. Mark Francois stood, greeted from the Labour side with a shout of “Here we go!” He revealed, to ironic cheers, that he had read the entire deal. It was a “surrender,” he declared. But where once prime ministers cowered at the threats of the Incredible Francois, now he was brushed aside.
Jenkin will always have 2016, but the Brexit show doesn’t get the crowds it used to
Most of all, it was Bernard Jenkin that summed the situation up. Jenkin is a Brexit long-marcher, a man whose career has been defined by his euroscepticism. He was a Maastricht rebel before some current MPs were even born. “Nothing can undo the fact,” he began, “that 17 and a half million people voted Leave.” We’d heard those words before quite often in recent years, but here they were a statement not of victory, but of defeat. You can make your trade deals, he was saying, you can get rid of the beautiful queues at borders and the wonderful piles of paperwork on exports. You can even allow twenty-somethings to work abroad, you monsters. But you can never take his freedom.
Jenkin will always have 2016, but the Brexit show doesn’t get the crowds it used to.
