Theresa May’s Brexit Delusion

As has become the custom, our not at all unelected Prime Minister has recorded an Easter message to be relayed to her loyal subjects across Britain, and, she no doubt hopes, the rest of the world. In this message, Theresa May talks of Christian values, our coming together as a nation, our tolerance and freedom of speech. She talks of our bright future. And she displays her complete and utter delusion about it all.

Ms May starts as she means to go on - on the wrong track: “This year, after a period of intense debate over the right future for our country, there is a sense that people are coming together and uniting behind the opportunities that lie ahead”. Yes, by leaving the EU, we are somehow coming together, which explains around 100,000 in London alone marching against Brexit last month, despite the Westminster attack days before.

There was also a reflection on the Union: “For at heart, this country is one great union of people and nations with a proud history and a bright future. And as we face the opportunities ahead of us - the opportunities that stem from our decision to leave the European Union and embrace the world - our shared interests, our shared ambitions, and above all our shared values can, and must, bring us together”.

That decision wasn’t taken in Scotland or Northern Ireland, and now we face the real prospect of the United Kingdom being broken up. As to those “opportunities”, many recent migrants from other EU member states are doing just that - taking the opportunity to avoid the hate merchants by going back home, or to another member state where they are better valued. Crops may rot in the ground, menial jobs might not get taken up, and the NHS may struggle to find staff, but what the heck, we will have FREEDOM!

We will also have Christian values: “I think of those values that we share - values that I learnt in my own childhood, growing up in a vicarage. Values of compassion, community, citizenship. The sense of obligation we have to one another … These are values we all hold in common, and values that are visibly lived out everyday by Christians, as well as by people of other faiths or none”. And how do those values get applied in practice?

They get applied by our Prime Minister grovelling to the leaders of Saudi Arabia for more arms sales, and not making too much fuss about the arms we already sold them being used to prosecute a vicious civil war in nearby Yemen. After all, the right-wing press won’t make too much fuss about that - it’s only more of those ghastly brown people.

The conclusion that the PM really ought to Get Out More is only compounded by her claim that “we should treasure the strong tradition that we have in this country of religious tolerance and freedom of speech”. But maybe not the freedom to voice disquiet about the misbehaviour of that press establishment that props her up - or the freedom to oppose Brexit, so often and so crudely shouted down with “We won, suck it up, get over it”.

Theresa May’s Christian values and boundless optimism are fine for someone with no money worries secluded away behind the Downing Street gates. But they won’t wash with all those ordinary people she clearly doesn’t understand. And her Brexit bluster is nothing short of delusional. So a typical Tory politician, then.