Why did the turkeys rush toward Christmas? Because they were following a headless chicken. No British prime minister since Anthony Eden’s nerves gave way after the Suez Crisis has shown the decapitated directional sense that Theresa May has shown as she staggers around the barnyard of Brexit. And no Cabinet since Suez has wobbled its wattles and puffed its feathers so self-destructively as May’s Cabinet, as it staggers after her toward a brutal stunning in the House of Commons, and thence into the electoral abattoir.
Wednesday was just another day on Animal Farm. On Tuesday, May had announced that she had secured a draft deal for Brexit from the European Union, and called an emergency Cabinet meeting for the following afternoon. Within minutes, members of her Cabinet were whispering against the plan, and a critical mass of Conservative Brexiteers were criticizing it loudly and massively. Even well-disposed observers were noting that the gaps in some areas of the “deal” were so wide that you could drive an EU-compliant bus through them.
