SELF-delusion is a common trait in politics.
And it was on full display at the plush offices of the PWC headquarters in London yesterday when Theresa May rushed out a speech on her bold “New Deal”.
But as the Prime Minister went through political contortions to try to get this group or that faction on board, it quickly became clear that what she was offering, no one was buying.
READ MORE: Theresa May’s ‘truly awful’ Brexit deal comes under fire
One might have thought the proposition to have votes on her red lines of a temporary customs union and a second referendum might have worked a treat. But no.
A vote on a vote was not good enough for Labour, the SNP and the Liberal Democrats, who all competed with each other in how condemnatory they could be.
Labour Remainer Ian Murray denounced the PM’s plan as a “con trick,” insisting that any Brexit deal “must categorically be put to the public in a vote and this proposal from Theresa May simply fails to guarantee that”.
But the attacks from the Opposition were nothing compared to the barbs directed at the PM from her own side.
One minister observed that his leader had achieved something prodigious: “How to take something bad and make it truly worse.”
Mrs May’s attempt to rework her Brexit plan appeared to be the classic case of trying to please everyone and pleasing no one. And the Conservative Brexiteers were certainly not best pleased.
One, Zac Goldsmith, denounced the legislation as a "convoluted mess," saying: “That it takes us towards a rigged referendum between her deal and no Brexit is just grotesque. The PM must go.”
READ MORE: Sturgeon vows SNP will reject PM’s Brexit deal
At the post-speech briefing which No 10 kindly gave confused journalists, the confusion simply grew as a raft of questions remained unanswered about such things as whether there would be free votes on the second referendum vote and the need to get Brussels to extend the October 31 extension as it would take up to a year to stage another referendum; a fraught parliamentary process in itself.
Today, the PM will, after PMQs, offer herself up to, what Tony Blair once called in relation to his tribulations on Iraq, a “masochism strategy”. After her Commons statement, Mrs May will open herself up to attacks from all sides of the Commons. The spectacle will not be for the faint-hearted.
Of course, if that were not bad enough for the PM and her ever-diminishing band of followers, this weekend Tory MPs will be watching the European election results from behind the sofa, hoping against hope that they will not be as bad as everyone expects them to be.
Chances are Nigel Farage will spend Bank Holiday Monday in the pub, beaming at the cameras as he soaks in the adulation from his supporters; not a milk-shake will be in sight.
READ MORE: PM promises MPs a vote on second referendum
Mrs May is hoping the weeklong Whitsun recess will calm her colleagues’ nerves before they get to vote on her reworked legislation. But she might be once again deluding herself.
Cabinet ministers could decide the prospect of yet another Commons defeat will be a humiliation too far; for them and her.
A delegation might make its way to No 10 to tell their beleaguered leader that her time is up and offer the PM the metaphorical revolver and glass of whisky in the Downing St library.
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