((opinion)) At last May manages to unite both the country and the Commons

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/21/at-last-may-manages-to-unite-both-the-country-and-the-commons

At last May manages to unite both the country and the Commons

John Crace

Fri 22 Mar 2019 00.44 GMT

For any other person, the EU council meeting would have been shit or bust. But given that Theresa May has long since treated the last-chance saloon as a drop-in centre for the soon-to-be homeless, we are now well beyond that. The Leader in Name Only has taken herself to the realms of shit and bust. A space-time continuum where she has failed upwards and upwards to the point where there are no good solutions on offer in any imagined universe. She is the kamikaze pilot doomed to crash her plane into the sea over and over again for all eternity.

Lino had started the day in reasonably good spirits. For once, she had managed to unite the whole country. The TUC and the CBI had released a joint statement saying she was useless. Both Labour and Tory MPs had been so thoroughly pissed off by her Bob Geldof “Give me your fucking votes” telethon appeal that they were even more likely to reject her deal than they had been before she had opened her mouth. Every one of her cabinet ministers was plotting to get rid of her. No one anywhere had a good word to say about her. In an act of misplaced martyrdom, Lino had brought a nation together. If this was her being on their side, they’d hate to see what she could do when she was against them.

Having left Gavin “Private Pike” Williamson in charge of activating the nuclear bunker under No 10 – on reflection, not the safest pair of hands for an apocalypse but needs must – Lino had headed off to Brussels for her latest final showdown. On arrival, she had appeared characteristically shifty when she was asked by reporters what she was going to say to the EU. Plan? Why were people expecting her to have a plan? That was the kind of question her cabinet kept asking her. She hopped nervously from one foot to the other, telling the cameras she was determined to be determined before beetling off mid-sentence.

That turned out to be pretty much a rehearsal for her meeting with the 27 EU leaders. A punishment beating for all concerned in which Lino managed to talk for 90 minutes but say almost nothing. Five minutes with May has been enough to have most people screaming for heavy medication. Munch had had it easy. Time and again, Lino was asked what she would do if she failed to get her deal through at the third attempt and each time she stared at the floor. The sound of one brain cell desperately seeking out another. It’s the closest to human contact she gets these days.
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As so often, Lino’s inability to articulate her basic needs – food, water, deal, no deal, death – left the EU in a state of thinly disguised fury and their discussions stretched well past the point where both the double act of Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk and May were supposed to give their press conferences on what had or hadn’t been agreed. Shortly before midnight, white smoke emerged. A deal had been offered that Lino was obliged to take. Her 90 minutes of tough talking to the EU had resulted in an offer considerably less than she had demanded. She has a way with words. Juncker and Tusk merely looked like indulgent parents who had prevented a crisis for a few more weeks at least. And would do so again if necessary. Whatever it took for the UK parliament to get its act together. Until the very end of time.
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