Theresa May is struggling to tell the truth. She couldn’t even say how she’d vote if there was another referendum on Brexit in her LBC interview yesterday.
At least Philip Hammond is trying. The chancellor wrote in The Times this morning that “we must be honest about the near-term challenges and complexities”. He went on to tell the Treasury Select Committee this morning that a no-deal Brexit could lead to a “bad-tempered breakdown” of relations with the EU. There was even a theoretical possibility that planes wouldn’t be able to fly to the EU, though he said nobody seriously expected that to happen.
Hammond will no doubt be condemned by Tory hardliners for being miserable. They want politicians to fuel their fantasies of sunlit uplands.
This is the game Boris Johnson has been playing. But you can’t buck reality for ever. Eventually it catches up with you – as indeed it has been catching up with the foreign secretary. His reputation has sunk as people realise he hasn’t been telling the truth.
Dishonesty is also destroying May. Her promise not to call an election. Her pretence that her multiple u-turns – notably on the dementia tax – haven’t been u-turns. Now her inability to say how she’d vote if there was another referendum. All these are eating away at her credibility.
Even worse, dishonesty is destroying our country. We are hurtling towards a disaster based on a pack of lies. There may be a few voters who know what’s in store and are happy to put up with the havoc – or to inflict it on the next generation. But many others have been deceived.
It’s not too late for May, a vicar’s daughter, to start telling the truth about what she thinks is really going on. Treat the voters as adults and, if they are happy to press on regardless, so be it. But if they change their mind when they see what Brexit means, then stop the madness.