Theresa May in cloud cuckoo land over Brexit

IMAGINE if, over lunch this weekend, your partner announced your relationship was over and that they wanted a divorce. 

Nevertheless, they insisted that they wanted to be involved in redesigning the family home they wished to leave. Implausible? Bizarre? Simply daft? Yes, all of those things, and more, but that is how Britain is approaching Brexit, as its prime minister, Theresa May’s declaration to this week’s EU summit showed. Her insistence that Britain wants a central role in EU decision-making, until it is ready to jump ship, has, naturally enough, angered European leaders

On Thursday, Ms May got a sharp warning from Angela Merkel and François Hollande that Britain faces a “hard” negotiation, yet she wants access to the single market while promising a clampdown on immigration. This expectation has been dismissed by European leader after European leader, but Britain’s government persists knowingly with the dishonesty that such a have-your-cake-and-eat-it deal is possible. This perpetuates the deception that was so obvious before the June vote, a vote decided by a margin surely insufficient for such a tremendous decision. It is hard not to think that an electorate so misled might have a very different opinion if asked the same question today. That Ms May has insisted the House of Commons will not vote on Brexit just strengthens the idea that this fiasco has been misjudged and that it is also closer to a coup than real democracy.