Betrayal over reality

In yesterdays Times, Danny Finkelstein wrote how the Conservative Right rather believes in betrayal when it's policies don't work, rather than the effect of reality.

"Every leader enventually disappoints the Brexiteers because what they want bears no resemblance to what is possible.

Real Brexit is, like socialism, a sort of abstract, undefined area, always a little further over the horizon, always waiting for someone bold enough, a true believer, to guide us to the promised land. All the actual problems with Brexit, as with socialism, is that we haven't tried the real thing.

While people think incorrectly that tax cuts automatically pay for themselves, they always feel the leader isn't cutting taxes quickly enough. Because just believing tax cuts are costless doesn't make them costless. And while people believe that with enough effort we can stop people coming across The Channel in boats, they will feel let down what the effort doesn't work.

When they think we can somehow make the Northern Ireland border problem disappear, they will feel betrayed when we cannot make the Northern Ireland Border problem disappear. And when they feel there is a massive wave of deregulation enabled by Brexit, they will feel disappointed when a Prime Minister realises that we actually need a fair amount of regulation.

When they think we should stop courts judicially reveiwing the Government or consulting EU judgements when reaching their own, they will feel disappointed when this goes on happening, as it will. And when they advance the idea that to stop this we ought to abandon the European Convention on Human Rights, they will be disappointed when the Prime Minister realises this would be a diplomatic diaster, which it would."

When the promise of Brexit isn't matched by the reality, it's never their or Brexit's fault, it's someone else's. Remainers, the Civil Service, the EU, the courts. Never theirs. We have now reached the point as detailed in Life of Brian, where some just are not pure in Brexit enough, true believers, or the People's Front of Judea.

Splitters.

Without a true Brexit believer, we will be betrayed. Penny doens't have eye for details, says the man who lead the negotiations. So his judgement is apparently less than perfect.

I would happily watch the Brexiteers tear themselves apart, but they are doing so while the country crumbles along with our reputation.

The clock is ticking.