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Know-nothing Arrogance or Machiavellian machinations?

As Theresa May forms her new government, she has certainly sprung a few surprises. The appointments of Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary, David Davis as the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU and Liam Fox as International Trade Minister have placed a large part of the future interaction between the UK and the EU in the hands of the Brexit campaigners. Some regard this as a subtle plan to ensure that the Leave campaign takes responsibility for what they have wrought. To be honest I think the jury is still out. The utter chaos of the last few days has been largely down to a proven lack of responsibility amongst the leaders of the Leave campaign. Mrs. May is given points for Machiavellianism in forcing the Leavers back into the Conservative tent, however what she has also done is that the Conservatives must now take responsibility for the future process of EU-UK relations. The Tories are now irrevocably the party of Brexit.

The problem with the "Brexit mean Brexit" discourse is that no one has yet determined precisely what Brexit does actually mean. Even now there is a clear difference between the ideas of an associate membership, an EFTA solution, and EEA solution or a complete exit from all EU-led structures. It is by no means clear what version carries with it the support of the Conservative Party. Increasingly there seems to be some traction that the "Brexit means Brexit" narrative actually means complete withdrawal. If so, then Mrs. May's "safe pair of hands" risks being the instrument of strangulation of the economic well being of our country and its political survival as a single unit.

While 51% were not clear about what version of Brexit they wanted, 48% - led by the young and the better educated- did not want to lose any of the features of the European Union. A complete exit is a very clear minority position. The appointment of Mr. Davis- who apparently does not understand that Germany and France will not do any trade agreements separate from the rest of the EU, because that is the whole point of the EU- is nearly as controversial as the appointment of Mr. Johnson, and potentially even riskier.

Mrs. May has squared the circles of her party, at the cost of irritating all the UK's international partners. The fact is that the ignorant who have wrapped themselves in self righteous tosh about British democracy fail to recognize the idealism that also lies at the heart of the European project. That cynical and lying journalists may have persuaded the old and the poor that the EU is all about bureaucracy does not remove the fact that the rest of Europe regards the Union as a noble project designed to support European prosperity as a whole. Lecturing those who believe in the European ideal in the way that many right-wing Conservatives have often tended to in the past will isolate Britain still further, and the divorce could become very bitter indeed.

As the new government takes its first baby-steps, Mrs. May must know that, despite the current implosion at the heart of Labour, it is the Conservatives who stand to be tarred with the contempt of history if a suitable and moderate path is not established soon. 

Even Machiavelli ended up in exile.    

  

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