Leading Brexit bullshitter Andrea Leadsom wants a managed Brexit this October. The implication is clear. Brexit has, up to now, been mismanaged.
Surely not, you cry. The promises made in the referendum campaign have all been kept: the NHS is better off by £350m every week… Now, just a minute… The new deal with the EU was the easiest in history… Hang on a moment there… Car manufacturers have flocked to… Well, everywhere else. The point is, Leadsom thinks she can’t do any worse.
It’s noticeable that even the likes of Leadsom have stopped saying how great Brexit will be. The only justifications are the corrupt, narrow referendum result and phoney manifesto promises. Leadsom, instead of driving us off the cliff edge, watching the country halt in mid-air like a Looney Tunes character before plummeting, wants to guide us gently to oblivion instead.
Because those really are the only options left open. From ‘Tory Rory’ Stewart’s nauseating faux innocence to Boris Johnson’s cod Churchill, nobody will consider the prospect of revocation. It’s either fly recklessly too close to the sun, or hurtle smoothly into the abyss.
But Leadsom is too late. The mismanagement has been too prolonged, the negligence too deeply ingrained. To manage Brexit means to start from scratch. Since this is a responsible course of action, there is no way Leadsom would ever consider it.
Brexit has not actually been managed at all. It has been allowed to happen. Take Back Control means laissez faire.
Nobody has been brave enough to take Brexit by the scruff of the neck and force it to behave. Now, like a spoilt child whose parents refuse to discipline him, Brexit is being unleashed on society without safeguards, contingency plans or backstops.
Someone else will have to pay. Someone else will have to take responsibility. Leadsom will wash her hands of the consequences.
But Brexit will destroy her all the same.