One of the first rules you learn when studying The Dummy’s Guide to Logic is that you cannot hold two contradictory positions at the same time. You cannot maintain “Gregory Campbell mocks the Irish language” and at the same time “Gregory Campbell respects the Irish language”. Or “Arlene Foster’s position as leader of the DUP is extremely wobbly” and “Arlene Foster’s position as leader of the DUP is not at all wobbly”. You have to take your pick.
So imagine my astonishment when I heard the British prime minister the other day comment on the EU’s statement about keeping our NEN within the EU customs union and single market. The British prime minister sounded very stern and definite indeed when she declared that “”no U.K. prime minister could ever agree to it”, the ‘it’ being the EU’s draft withdrawal agreement which includes a proposal to effectively keep Northern Ireland inside the bloc’s single market and customs union in order to ensure there will be no hard border with the south of Ireland, an EU member state.
Mrs May says the EU proposal would mean a border full fathom five in the middle of the Irish Sea, and so would be a threat to the common market of the UK.
Fair enough. A lot of us might disagree with her but she does have a right to hold the view she does.
BUT. But but but but. On 8 December 2017, Mrs May signed up to an agreement with the EU which said among other things “In the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the all-island economy and the protection of the 1998 Agreement.”
Got that? “The UK will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union.” Now no one is saying that this is the first best option. There are two preceding options which should be considered first. But it is a fact that the UK has signed up to this third option as a “back-stop”- to be used when all else fails.
Yet now the British PM is telling the House of Commons that NO British PM would ever agree to such a thing.
Theresa, you just did. Concentrate. A big meeting with EU people. An agreement. You signed up to it. All coming back now? Oh good. Who knows – maybe with time you’ll remember that commitment in 2006, where the UK signed up to an Irish Language Act.
But do keep in mind the basic rule of Logic: you can’t be a bold, strong Conservative leader and a fearful, wilting Tory Maybot at the same time.
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