Theresa May couldn’t deliver a pizza, never mind Brexit

by Mhairi Black
Posted on
6 years ago
2 min read

Prime Minister’s Questions is that moment every week when Theresa May looks increasingly like someone caught in the headlights. Four of my colleagues added to her misery last week.

SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford asked about the reckless and deeply worrying U turn by Donald Trump on the Iran nuclear deal, and how her hopeless joke of a Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was totally ineffective in dealing with the American administration.

The PM then had to deal with questions from my SNP colleagues Hannah Bardell, Deidre Brock and Drew Hendry. Each asked about one of the increasingly unresolved and unravelling issues on Brexit which highlights how incompetent this UK Government are.

These weren’t theoretical questions, these were specific issues already hitting real businesses and individuals, about which the Prime Minister appeared to be utterly clueless. One question was about a life science company in Livingston who need to know (along with everyone else) what the UK Government’s customs union plan is for exporting businesses after Brexit, so they can plan for their future.

The answer from the PM? “We’ll let you know.”

And the third:

The next question: What arrangements are being made to ensure the tourism industry is not going to suffer from a lack of EU national staff following Brexit ?

The answer: “We are working on that right now.”

How can people worried about the Windrush scandal and the UK Government’s right-wing “hostile environment” immigration policy be sure we will not see even more people being kicked out of the country in a cruel, callous and completely wrong way after Brexit?

The answer: “We are trying to make sure that never happens again.”

It was an incredibly depressing and worrying sight. We know this is a callous, cruel Tory Government. If you still doubt that, think about the rape clause, the shocking rise in foodbank use because of austerity and the disastrous rollout of Universal Credit. Callous and cruel, but also incompetent. The UK Government are fighting like cats in a sack and are totally unable to answer even the most straightforward questions about Brexit.

It’s now nearly two years since their chaotic EU referendum and the UK Government still don’t know what they want. For months, all we got was “Brexit means Brexit” but it’s increasingly clear they still haven’t got a clue what that actually means.

What Blackford, Bardell, Brock and Hendry all exposed, once again, is that May has no idea what she’s doing. She was forced to write an embarrassing plea over the weekend – pledging in the newspapers that we can trust her to deliver a good Brexit deal.

But the reality is: You wouldn’t trust that lot to deliver a pizza.