HENRY DEEDES Boris Johnson pegged it out of the Commons chamber on Friday. You barely saw the PM for dust. I don’t think I’ve seen him move so fast since he was pushed for a quick single once in a cricket match.
It was a few minutes shy of 3pm and MPs had just backed his Brexit Withdrawal Agreement Bill – 1,274 days, 16 hours and roughly 42 minutes since the referendum result was announced on that balmy June morning back in 2016.
At last, a deal had been passed! Some of us half hoped the PM would respond with a little victory jig at the Despatch Box. But no sooner was the result announced than whooooooosh!
Boris Johnson pegged it out of the Commons chamber on Friday. You barely saw the PM for dust
That unmistakable mass of white blond hair was out the door quicker than a motorised hare at a greyhound track. And so it is finally done. On January 31, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will leave the European Union.
The result was never in doubt, of course. The Government’s general election rout had seen to that. But for the first time since the EU Referendum we can now, at long last, say: ‘Brexit, we are go for launch!’ What a long and tedious road it has been.
All those agonising late-night votes. All those troublemakers and their clever little amendments designed to block Brexit every which way. Letwin. Grieve. The dreaded Bercow. To think, this time last year the Government was tearing itself apart with a no confidence vote in Theresa May. How very different it all looks now.
Speaking of Mrs May, she was there yesterday, resplendent in Black Watch tartan, chatting warmly with some of the new intake. After the tribulations she has endured this past year, it is at least warming to see what a gracious adornment to the backbenches she has already become.
Proceedings got off to an early start. At 9.30am, first order of business was for the new Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, to announce he wouldn’t be allowing any wretched amendments on the bill. Phew!
It was a few minutes shy of 3pm and MPs had just backed his Brexit Withdrawal Agreement Bill – 1,274 days, 16 hours and roughly 42 minutes since the referendum result was announced on that balmy June morning back in 2016
Boris gave a conciliatory sort of speech, insisting the bill’s passing should not be seen as victory ‘for one party or one faction over another’.
The time had now come to discard the Leave and Remain tags. The words, he said, had become ‘as defunct as Montagues and Capulets’ at the end of a play. Let’s all just move on now, was the general message. Dull interim Lib Dem leader, Sir Edward Davey, whose party’s Brexit policy remains a dog’s breakfast, kept trying to intervene. ‘When they have worked their policy out I will give way,’ chortled the PM.
I fear plenty of soul-searching into what the point of the Lib Dems is in the coming months.
Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn was irritable, ratty. I don’t blame him. This week he must feel like a sportsman who’s been thrashed in a semi-final and has had to hang around for a meaningless third-place play-off.
The rest of the debate churned out little of great note. Former international trade secretary Liam Fox made a peppery speech in which he bemoaned Parliament’s various attempts to block Brexit over the past year.
When he urged the Speaker to ‘repair some of the damage done to the reputation of the Chair of this House by some of your predecessor’s decisions’, I noticed Sir Lindsay suddenly found something interesting on the floor to stare at. When SNP windbag Ian Blackford rose, a number of MPs got up and left. No surprises there.
Sir William Cash (Con, Stone) gave a similarly overly long and pompous speech in which he brought up Hitler’s defeat. This came as even less of a surprise.
Sir Keir Starmer, Shadow Brexit Secretary, was charged with summing up for the Opposition.
Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn was irritable, ratty. I don’t blame him. This week he must feel like a sportsman who’s been thrashed in a semi-final and has had to hang around for a meaningless third-place play-off
His hair was arranged in an alarming Mr Whippy hairdo, reminiscent of former Tory home secretary Douglas Hurd in his pomp. He gave a decent-ish speech but oh isn’t he dreary? No vim, dear, no verve. Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay’s response followed, along much the same lines as Boris’s opening remarks.
Incidentally, Barclay’s department is about to be abolished. A decent cove, the poor fellow surely deserves another government role on account of all the airless rooms and tepid mineral water he’s had to endure negotiating with Brussels this past year.
Once the tellers announced the result, all that was left was for the deputy speaker Sir Roger Gale to wish MPs a good break and a happy Christmas.
Some Conservative MPs offered each other manly hugs. The PM meanwhile, had long since bolted, leaving only vapour trails in his midst.
And so Parliament rises for its Christmas recess with – it would be nice to think – a renewed sense of hope and no small amount of relief. Until January, Westminster. It’s been emotional.