Extracting ourselves from the European Union could take up to six years, and the trio in charge are a joke
Boris Johnson, the new foreign secretary; David Davis, who is in charge of Brexit negotiations; and Liam Fox, the new international trade secretary.
Composite: Daniel Leal-Olivas, Gareth Fuller, Dylan Martinez/AFP/Getty/PA/Reuters
Another week in Brexit, another seven days in which the tickers along the bottom of the news channel screens may as well have been changed to a continuous loop of the inquiry: WHAT JUST HAPPENED?????
Matters that would have added to the gaiety of the nation for days are relegated to news-in-brief items that really are far too brief. Gay-cure-linked biblical moraliser Stephen Crabb has left the government “in the best interests of my family”. Iain Duncan Smith must be sanctioned for failing to get back into work again. Michael Gove’s analogy in which he was well placed to save a child from a collapsing building has ended with the child taking out a restraining order against him.
But it is the news of appointments actually made that has felt more malarial, with Theresa May’s reshuffle of government widely described as “root and branch”. Think of the new PM as hacking down a dense forest of cluelessness, in the hope that it might liberate the princess of a plan slumbering somewhere therein.
Typically in the UK, jobs that are utterly thankless and unworkably exhausting are left to migrants. For whatever reason, Theresa May didn’t feel she had that option when she had to appoint her troika of senior ministers to handle the UK’s graceless exit from the EU. So it is that Boris Johnson, David Davis and Liam Fox will be clambering inside the Jean-Paul Sartre simulator and testing the theory that hell is other fatally flawed Tories. A bold branding initiative is trying to cast them as the Three Brexiteers , but you’ll probably be less disappointed if you see them as Aramis, Werritys and Takethepiss.
Nobody knows anything, runs William Goldman’s famous verdict on Hollywood, and that motto is being metaphorically chiselled into the stone lintel above Whitehall’s newest department. Take our new secretary of state for exiting the European Union, David Davis. It has emerged that as recently as May, Davis had believed it would be possible for Britain to negotiate trade deals directly with each EU member state, as opposed to the reality, which is that the member states are only permitted to negotiate as a bloc.
Frankly, there hasn’t been as massive a misreading of a trade situation since the Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn judged: “These federation types are cowards. The negotiations will be short.” See ya 37 hours of tedious CGI politicking later, buddy! Or as Philip Hammond, the incoming chancellor of the exchequer, observed earlier in the week, extracting ourselves from the European Union could take six years, reminding dreamers that Brexit will be like living in an even crappier version of the Phantom Menace for more than half a decade.
Anyhow, that loser is now the foreign secretary. Sham marriages have longer honeymoon periods than Theresa May, who enjoyed a couple of hours after her nice speech in Downing Street before handing Boris Johnson the Foreign Office. Much of the reaction to the news was probably best summarised by the member of the public who hung a sign on the railings outside Boris’s London home reading simply: SORRY WORLD.
There has been a welter of speculation on the thinking behind the decision. Maybe Theresa May was worried that foreigners were too stupid to read the message of Brexit, and consequently made the appointment to underscore the point. After all, having the insult-happy Johnson as our outward face to the world sends the clearest message possible, short of spraying BOTHERD WHAT YOU LOT THINK in 50-metre letters on the white cliffs of Dover.
As for the third of our ministerial band of brothers, it is a pleasure to welcome back former disgraced former minister Liam Fox, now secretary of state for international trade. Liam is a guy I always feel like I go back years with, on account of the fact that in the very first week of my employment at the Guardian, he was the star of the best item in the Diary column on which I worked. Certainly the only thing approaching a story. Liam had attended a reception in Westminster, where he had enchanted fellow guests with a brilliant joke. Question: “What do you call three dogs and a blackbird?” Answer: “The Spice Girls.”
Yup, that guy’s now secretary of state for international trade. The Spice Girls are currently trading with just Mel B, Geri, and Emma involved, so Liam might want to adjust his numbers when wheeling out the old gag as an icebreaker with the Canadians. Always start with a joke, secretary of state. Heaven knows your boss did.
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Another week in Brexit, another seven days in which the tickers along the bottom of the news channel screens may as well have been changed to a continuous loop of the inquiry: WHAT JUST HAPPENED?????
Matters that would have added to the gaiety of the nation for days are relegated to news-in-brief items that really are far too brief. Gay-cure-linked biblical moraliser Stephen Crabb has left the government “in the best interests of my family”. Iain Duncan Smith must be sanctioned for failing to get back into work again. Michael Gove’s analogy in which he was well placed to save a child from a collapsing building has ended with the child taking out a restraining order against him.
But it is the news of appointments actually made that has felt more malarial, with Theresa May’s reshuffle of government widely described as “root and branch”. Think of the new PM as hacking down a dense forest of cluelessness, in the hope that it might liberate the princess of a plan slumbering somewhere therein.
Typically in the UK, jobs that are utterly thankless and unworkably exhausting are left to migrants. For whatever reason, Theresa May didn’t feel she had that option when she had to appoint her troika of senior ministers to handle the UK’s graceless exit from the EU. So it is that Boris Johnson, David Davis and Liam Fox will be clambering inside the Jean-Paul Sartre simulator and testing the theory that hell is other fatally flawed Tories. A bold branding initiative is trying to cast them as the Three Brexiteers , but you’ll probably be less disappointed if you see them as Aramis, Werritys and Takethepiss.
Nobody knows anything, runs William Goldman’s famous verdict on Hollywood, and that motto is being metaphorically chiselled into the stone lintel above Whitehall’s newest department. Take our new secretary of state for exiting the European Union, David Davis. It has emerged that as recently as May, Davis had believed it would be possible for Britain to negotiate trade deals directly with each EU member state, as opposed to the reality, which is that the member states are only permitted to negotiate as a bloc.
Frankly, there hasn’t been as massive a misreading of a trade situation since the Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn judged: “These federation types are cowards. The negotiations will be short.” See ya 37 hours of tedious CGI politicking later, buddy! Or as Philip Hammond, the incoming chancellor of the exchequer, observed earlier in the week, extracting ourselves from the European Union could take six years, reminding dreamers that Brexit will be like living in an even crappier version of the Phantom Menace for more than half a decade.
That David Davis was last seen suing Theresa May’s Home Office over surveillance, in the European Court of Justice, is just another of those boggling quirks of the new order, which are – like the deaths of Spinal Tap drummers – best left uninvestigated. The judgment is pending, so let’s hope both parties are shameless enough to claim it as a win for the ministerial top table whichever way it goes.
Perhaps the best that can be said for Davis thus far is that his boss has yet to undermine his negotiating skills publicly. As we know from her 30-minute Tory leadership campaign, Theresa May has a benchmark for buffoonish negotiation, and it’s that loser who went to Europe to do a deal and “came back with three nearly new water cannon”. Which she wouldn’t let him use.
Anyhow, that loser is now the foreign secretary. Sham marriages have longer honeymoon periods than Theresa May, who enjoyed a couple of hours after her nice speech in Downing Street before handing Boris Johnson the Foreign Office. Much of the reaction to the news was probably best summarised by the member of the public who hung a sign on the railings outside Boris’s London home reading simply: SORRY WORLD.
There has been a welter of speculation on the thinking behind the decision. Maybe Theresa May was worried that foreigners were too stupid to read the message of Brexit, and consequently made the appointment to underscore the point. After all, having the insult-happy Johnson as our outward face to the world sends the clearest message possible, short of spraying BOTHERD WHAT YOU LOT THINK in 50-metre letters on the white cliffs of Dover.
As for the third of our ministerial band of brothers, it is a pleasure to welcome back former disgraced former minister Liam Fox, now secretary of state for international trade. Liam is a guy I always feel like I go back years with, on account of the fact that in the very first week of my employment at the Guardian, he was the star of the best item in the Diary column on which I worked. Certainly the only thing approaching a story. Liam had attended a reception in Westminster, where he had enchanted fellow guests with a brilliant joke. Question: “What do you call three dogs and a blackbird?” Answer: “The Spice Girls.”
Yup, that guy’s now secretary of state for international trade. The Spice Girls are currently trading with just Mel B, Geri, and Emma involved, so Liam might want to adjust his numbers when wheeling out the old gag as an icebreaker with the Canadians. Always start with a joke, secretary of state. Heaven knows your boss did.
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