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| Eeyore Hammond? Welcome to the Brexit Hundred Acre Wood | Eeyore Hammond? Welcome to the Brexit Hundred Acre Wood |
| (about 2 months later) | |
| What a comfort, as we near the sharp end of the Brexit negotiations, to see a resurgence of people honking about “Project Fear”. It’s all directed at Philip Hammond, whose take on a no-deal Brexit is what you might call a no-shit letter. According to the chancellor, a no-deal Brexit would have “large fiscal consequences”. | What a comfort, as we near the sharp end of the Brexit negotiations, to see a resurgence of people honking about “Project Fear”. It’s all directed at Philip Hammond, whose take on a no-deal Brexit is what you might call a no-shit letter. According to the chancellor, a no-deal Brexit would have “large fiscal consequences”. |
| Brexit: Philip Hammond's £80bn no-deal warning exposes Tory rift | Brexit: Philip Hammond's £80bn no-deal warning exposes Tory rift |
| Keen to respond in detail to the substance of his arguments, hardline Brexiters such as the Tories’ Marcus Fysh bemoaned “another instalment of dodgy Project Fear”. “Project Fear 2.0”, shrieked the Express. Friday’s Daily Mail went with “Eeyore Hammond launches Project Fear (Pt 2)”, confirming the terminal retreat into infantilised analogies that you might expect at this stage in our national journey. Denizens of the Hundred Acre Wood are being advised to stockpile hunny and prepare to have to hammer their own tails back in if they fall off. Still, worth it to keep Tigger and Kanga out of the forest. | Keen to respond in detail to the substance of his arguments, hardline Brexiters such as the Tories’ Marcus Fysh bemoaned “another instalment of dodgy Project Fear”. “Project Fear 2.0”, shrieked the Express. Friday’s Daily Mail went with “Eeyore Hammond launches Project Fear (Pt 2)”, confirming the terminal retreat into infantilised analogies that you might expect at this stage in our national journey. Denizens of the Hundred Acre Wood are being advised to stockpile hunny and prepare to have to hammer their own tails back in if they fall off. Still, worth it to keep Tigger and Kanga out of the forest. |
| Can you just put “Project” in front of anything and it counts as a brilliant counterargument, then? Picture this playing out in a courtroom, where the prosecution has just rested its case, and the defence barrister stands up and does an eyeroll while saying “Ooooh, Project Prosecution!”. Then sits down again. I’m feeling like the accused probably doesn’t get off. | Can you just put “Project” in front of anything and it counts as a brilliant counterargument, then? Picture this playing out in a courtroom, where the prosecution has just rested its case, and the defence barrister stands up and does an eyeroll while saying “Ooooh, Project Prosecution!”. Then sits down again. I’m feeling like the accused probably doesn’t get off. |
| I am also feeling that the UK is unlikely to get off with a red white and blue Brexit or a clean Brexit, or any of the other types of Brexit that were apparently previously on the menu. Paediatric medicines shortage Brexit, anyone? | I am also feeling that the UK is unlikely to get off with a red white and blue Brexit or a clean Brexit, or any of the other types of Brexit that were apparently previously on the menu. Paediatric medicines shortage Brexit, anyone? |
| Encouragingly, it is once again the turn of DExEU secretary Dominic Raab to offer reassurances about a no-deal Brexit. Last month, Dominic wanly assured a select committee that there will be “adequate food”. This week, he gave a speech to tie in with his department’s publication of some “technical notes” on the implications of a no-deal Brexit, warning the EU to “match our ambition”. Couldn’t agree more. I’d like to take this opportunity to warn the England cricket selectors to “match my ambition”. | Encouragingly, it is once again the turn of DExEU secretary Dominic Raab to offer reassurances about a no-deal Brexit. Last month, Dominic wanly assured a select committee that there will be “adequate food”. This week, he gave a speech to tie in with his department’s publication of some “technical notes” on the implications of a no-deal Brexit, warning the EU to “match our ambition”. Couldn’t agree more. I’d like to take this opportunity to warn the England cricket selectors to “match my ambition”. |
| The technical notes contained some lighter moments, such as the revelation we buy in half our sperm from Denmark. What happened to us, man? We used to make stuff. Still, I imagine Westminster could put together a sperm bank bailout at short notice. It is less easy to be confident about their grip on other sectors, exemplified by DExEU’s airy advice to businesses to “consider your role in EU supply chains”. To which the only reasonable response is “consider your role in getting us to this pretty pass”. | The technical notes contained some lighter moments, such as the revelation we buy in half our sperm from Denmark. What happened to us, man? We used to make stuff. Still, I imagine Westminster could put together a sperm bank bailout at short notice. It is less easy to be confident about their grip on other sectors, exemplified by DExEU’s airy advice to businesses to “consider your role in EU supply chains”. To which the only reasonable response is “consider your role in getting us to this pretty pass”. |
| Fortunately for Raab, he gets to spout this stuff largely unopposed. Labour have some antisemitism they urgently need to be getting on with. As for the Liberal Democrats, I’m sorry for this deep dive into the Where Are They Now? files, but whatever happened to them? Are they still going? I assumed Vince Cable had been summering in one of the better witness protection programmes. Only very occasionally does he break cover. “Understand Nigel Farage returning to UK politics,” he tweeted last weekend. Is “understand” the Liberal Democrat version of “Sky sources”? Without wishing to denigrate the Lib Dem leader’s contact network, Farage’s return to politics was widely “understood” at this point, on account of it having been on the front of the Telegraph for a day. | Fortunately for Raab, he gets to spout this stuff largely unopposed. Labour have some antisemitism they urgently need to be getting on with. As for the Liberal Democrats, I’m sorry for this deep dive into the Where Are They Now? files, but whatever happened to them? Are they still going? I assumed Vince Cable had been summering in one of the better witness protection programmes. Only very occasionally does he break cover. “Understand Nigel Farage returning to UK politics,” he tweeted last weekend. Is “understand” the Liberal Democrat version of “Sky sources”? Without wishing to denigrate the Lib Dem leader’s contact network, Farage’s return to politics was widely “understood” at this point, on account of it having been on the front of the Telegraph for a day. |
| I don’t know who’s running the Lib Dem writers’ room, but I’m amazed they didn’t reject this summer’s plotlines for being simply too on the nose. In case you missed it – and God knows they did – neither the leader nor the former leader of the “stop Brexit” party turned up to last month’s key Brexit vote, which passed by just three votes. Tim Farron was in Dorset, doing a talk on how he balances his evangelical Christian views with his job as a liberal politician. And Vince Cable was at a secret dinner to discuss the setting up of a new centrist party. | I don’t know who’s running the Lib Dem writers’ room, but I’m amazed they didn’t reject this summer’s plotlines for being simply too on the nose. In case you missed it – and God knows they did – neither the leader nor the former leader of the “stop Brexit” party turned up to last month’s key Brexit vote, which passed by just three votes. Tim Farron was in Dorset, doing a talk on how he balances his evangelical Christian views with his job as a liberal politician. And Vince Cable was at a secret dinner to discuss the setting up of a new centrist party. |
| What can you say? There’s a character in the Martin Amis novel The Information who gets to the stage of feeling he desperately needs a cigarette even while he is smoking a cigarette. There is something of this to Sir Vince, who is gripped by a craving to lead a centrist party even while he is already the leader of one. | What can you say? There’s a character in the Martin Amis novel The Information who gets to the stage of feeling he desperately needs a cigarette even while he is smoking a cigarette. There is something of this to Sir Vince, who is gripped by a craving to lead a centrist party even while he is already the leader of one. |
| As for other potential centrist parties, there seem to be preparations for several underway, according to various reports this week. These have sent many in Labour on the attack. Given we have to take our laughs where we can these days, it’s the ill-disguised tone of affront in these attacks that’s the biggest giggle. I am not sure one can really spend a few years insulting people who are deemed to vote Labour in the wrong kind of way, then be outraged that they might finally not care to do so any more. It’s a little bit “if I can’t have you then no one can”. From the outside, that said, a new party will have to work hard not to seem like the latest ruse cooked up by an also-affronted urban elite. It could easily feel like a continuation of the haute remainer tendency to think things can be bought, flounced or litigated into something they find more acceptable. | As for other potential centrist parties, there seem to be preparations for several underway, according to various reports this week. These have sent many in Labour on the attack. Given we have to take our laughs where we can these days, it’s the ill-disguised tone of affront in these attacks that’s the biggest giggle. I am not sure one can really spend a few years insulting people who are deemed to vote Labour in the wrong kind of way, then be outraged that they might finally not care to do so any more. It’s a little bit “if I can’t have you then no one can”. From the outside, that said, a new party will have to work hard not to seem like the latest ruse cooked up by an also-affronted urban elite. It could easily feel like a continuation of the haute remainer tendency to think things can be bought, flounced or litigated into something they find more acceptable. |
| Whether any such party would take more votes from the Tories or Labour is a matter of debate. But whatever its effect, I trust that it would not provoke a nanosecond of self-reflection on either side. Taking responsibility is the least fashionable thing in politics these days, and aggressively blaming others – Zionist conspirators/cultists/the media/millennials/the elite – seems likely to remain more popular than wondering if it was just possible that things are partly down to something any of us or our proxies said or did. Call it Project Jeer, and consider it the only unifying slogan of our times. | Whether any such party would take more votes from the Tories or Labour is a matter of debate. But whatever its effect, I trust that it would not provoke a nanosecond of self-reflection on either side. Taking responsibility is the least fashionable thing in politics these days, and aggressively blaming others – Zionist conspirators/cultists/the media/millennials/the elite – seems likely to remain more popular than wondering if it was just possible that things are partly down to something any of us or our proxies said or did. Call it Project Jeer, and consider it the only unifying slogan of our times. |
| • Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist | • Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist |
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