The Prime Minister Speech: Channeling UKIP

I listened to the whole of Theresa May's Brexit speech, disagreeing as she went, beginning with her first claim: "The British People voted to leave". 

No Theresa. 1.3 million out of 60 million people in the UK voted to leave. That was the majority result. 1.3 million out is not the "British People".

Here are some more of her immortal one-liners:

"Trade is so important I made a special department" [and put it in the care of .. er..Liam `Werrity` Fox]

Scientists are just wrong to fear Brexit. [Scientists are always wrong if they take a different view to Conservatives].

The country is coming together. [No it isn't. Political polarisation is increasing all the time.]

At the very end, after crooning about the sweet deal that would result as a result of her negotiations, she suddenly switched to Tough Mode. Britain would not accept a punitive Brexit that discourages other from leaving EU. We would retaliate against such deal with a trade war.

This is a fair summary of what she said. 

What kind of Brexit deal does the PM think the EU wants to create? Does she really believe that they will go for a deal that encourages other states to leave? Of course the deal is going to be tough, and a trade war is going to be even tougher. 

The discussion that followed on BBC2 carried a beaming Suzanne Evans who said May was "channelling UKIP". As indeed she was. 

So we can conclude that the PM has been taken hostage by the Eurosceptic (and climate sceptic) hard line right within the Tory Party, and has succumbed to the Stockholm Syndrome. This is understandable: Theresa was a bit of a loner before becoming PM, and that, combined with being a total Billy-No-Mates in the EU, has driven her into the ideologically crisp embrace of the Right, who will, of course, persuade her to bow down before the Golden Idol of Donald Trump.

We live in interesting times.