Friday 1st July

Am I the only person to have noticed the spring in Mr. Cameron’s step?  Why, rather than crestfallen after his massive defeat at the Referendum he seems positively jolly.  Rather than call for a period of calm after the upheaval, a time for some quiet reflection, maybe even a debate in the House on the consequences of the vote and the way forward, he seems hell-bent on pushing forward and beginning the process of implementing the decision.  It is almost as if he has changed sides overnight and is now, or was always a secret, Brexiteer.  And compared to the roaring silence coming from Gove and Johnson this is quite amazing.  Okay, so Cameron is Prime Minister (for now) and is supposed to show leadership but only weeks ago he was predicting disaster if we ever left the EU, now he is busy telling us of the many things we must do to implement the wishes of the people.

I suspect that like much of what he does this is all stuff and nonsense and he has another agenda, which is to embarrass Johnson (or whoever else succeeds him) and to box them into a corner, where the only way out will be to beg (for that may well be what we end up doing, it will be 27 against 1 after all) the remaining members of the EU for access to the Single Market, because in all reality that was the only bit of Europe the Tories ever wanted.  But Cameron knows that the Brexit vote was indeed a Phyrric Victory and in order to get access to the single market they will have to accept free movement of people – the very thing which most Leavers voted against.

And on the other side we have Jeremy, a lifelong Euro-skeptic who changed sides (possibly to keep his M.P.s on side) and supported Remain, and is now accused of not persuading Labour voters (by the way, Blair and Brown and many others advocated Stay but no blame attaches to them) to vote that way and may be deposed because of it.  Funny old world.  Cameron will ride off into the sunset and the Lords and Directorships aplenty, and Jeremy may become a sad by-word in the turbulent history of the Labour Party.  Or not, we will see.