If there’s one thing I’ll never forgive Jacob Rees-Mogg for, it’s for making me very somewhat glad that Theresa May retained her seat as Prime Minister. This week, as a bunch of men achieved their goal of getting steps put in place to formally unseat the woman in charge, I found myself utterly and completely on the fence. Not an experience I have commonly. But, as May survived the vote and remained in her position, and Rees-Mogg’s smug face was on BBC News suggesting that she hadn’t done that well and should resign, I found myself ever so slightly glad that he had lost in his bid.
Let’s be clear, I can’t bear Theresa May or what she stands for. In her ministerial role prior to becoming Prime Minister, she towered over racist and homophobic policies at the Home Office and, as Prime Minister, she has overseen austerity and other hateful stances that I have objected to at every turn. But she’s better than Rees-Mogg and, if she had been unseated, there was not a single Conservative bod who I thought I could tolerate in the role.
Antiquated procedures
This week’s shenanigans have been a shining example of the weird antiquated activities we see in British politics. May, all set to finally propose her Brexit bill to the House of Commons, ultimately lost her nerve and refused to do so because it was eminently clear that she was going to lose the vote. The Speaker of the House referred to this delay as “deeply discourteous”, which is posh British for “fucking HELL that’s not ok”. In protest, a different MP grabbed the Parliamentary mace, a big metal stick that apparently, I subsequently learned, is representative of the Queen’s authority in parliament: “Conservative MPs shouted “Disgrace” and “Expel him” as he raised the five-foot silver gilt object aloft.” So he gave it back and left.
Also deeply discourteous, though we have to keep things in perspective. So far, so quintessentially, stereotypically British.
Next, the “rebel” (please) MPs finally succeeded in getting a vote of confidence to take place in the Prime Minister. In order for a vote of confidence to be called, 42 Conservative MPs have to write to something called the 1922 Committee. Then all Conservative MPs vote. If she loses the vote, she has to stand down as Prime Minister and a leadership election will be called that she is not allowed to stand in. If she wins the vote, she remains in charge and no further votes of no confidence can take place for 12 months.
Reader, she won. And Rees-Mogg’s disappointed mug on my TV app looked so put out that I was glad. I can’t bear him. And unless she stands down (and she has done a stirling job of not standing down, repeatedly, despite how useless she’s been), she’s assured of her place for another year. Why she wants it I have no idea, because she’s delivering the worst thing that’s going to happen to our country for a long time, but she seems to want to stay and deliver this Brexit deal that is going to ruin us all.
The hypocrisy hurts
Jacob Rees-Mogg has been moaning that the woman the Tories voted in to lead them two years ago did not turn out as planned. He was not happy at all with what had been going on. He wanted a further vote, given the new information he imagined he had garnered, and he persuaded enough of his colleagues to allow this to happen.
Because, sometimes, two years after a decision, you realise you backed the wrong horse. It happens. That’s why we have General Elections a maximum of five years apart.
But Rees-Mogg, and his kind-of allies like Boris Johnson, refuse to contemplate a people’s vote on the Brexit deal because, two years ago, we voted for Brexit and so it should take place.
It doesn’t matter that the deal we are facing is not at all what most people had imagined it would be. It doesn’t matter that all predictions are that we are going to lose out in every possible way. It doesn’t matter that the Leave campaign looks like it committed some highly illegal activities in order to win.
None of that matters because, in 2016, we voted ‘out’ by 52% / 48%. We must respect the vote of the people back then, they say, then take action to recall and reject their own decision from the time following the disastrous referendum.
The same Conservatives who want rid of May are those who support a hard Brexit, dismissing calls for a vote on the final deal, because we voted two years ago and it was decided. Well they, too, voted two years ago – on their leader – and they have every right to vote again when things shifted. Why can’t the country?
Rees-Mogg is now calling for Theresa May to resign, because she only survived the confidence vote by 83 members’ votes. He says that she should be sufficiently chastised that she should stand down. Compare this to the tight, tight 52% who won the Brexit vote – a far smaller percentage than voted to get rid of the PM, and his hypocrisy is, again, clear.
I will never forgive the man for making me feel an ounce of sympathy for this Prime Minister, and I will certainly never forgive her if we are not given our say on the Brexit deal from hell.
Photo: The Estonian Presidency