I SHARE some things in common with Armando Iannucci. We attended the same primary school and we both have Scots-Italian heritage. Armando writes cuttingly farcical political comedies, and I have felt at times like I’ve been living in one, having unwittingly been embroiled in two mini controversies concerning Brexit in the last week.
On Tuesday I managed to get sight of the “missing pages” in the UK’s Brexit analysis.
A few weeks ago, MSPs were permitted, under frankly bizarre conditions, to view the many fabled Brexit analysis papers, which had been released under an arcane Westminster procedure known as a ‘Humble Address’.
I’d never addressed an economic analysis before, but I’d done enough Burn suppers to feel reasonably confident addressing most inanimate objects.
I turned up at the Scotland Office in Edinburgh at my allotted time, was given a document to sign, and asked to hand over my phone for the duration.
I was then led, under escort, through the building to a room where the secret Brexit analysis document was laid out for us to read, while a UK civil servant hovered in the background.
In all honesty, I’d been expecting a document of considerable substance, bursting with data, graphs and negotiating strategies.
I was therefore a bit underwhelmed and not a little confused to be presented with a flimsy set of photocopied Powerpoint slides. Was that it? Many of the slides explained why certain analysis was too difficult due to lack of clarity. Well, quite. What data was there only confirmed what is already in the public domain and had been already been robustly presented by the Scottish Government weeks before.
But here comes the kicker- half the pages of the document were missing. I asked the civil servant if this was a mistake and was informed that they must have been “redacted”.
They weren’t. It later transpired they’d just copied one side of the document. A triumph of cock-up over conspiracy. Iannucci would be proud.
And so this week MSPs were allowed to view the even page numbers of the document. I can’t tell you what was in the papers – but even if I did I wouldn’t be telling you anything new. The economic impact of Brexit to the UK economy ranges from disaster to complete melt-down.
And then this week at FMQs I asked a question about Brexit, only to have it ruled out of order by the Presiding Officer.
We will never know what the First Minister thinks of the fact that a third of Scottish Tory MPs have now pledged allegiance to a hard Brexit led by Jacob Rees-Mogg, an outcome endorsed by no single constituency in Scotland. Although I’m sure we can all guess what her response would have been.
This experience has been indicative of the whole Brexit process. Confused, incomplete, incompetent and leaving us none the wiser as to where this omnishambles is taking us.
The script may read like a scene from The Thick of It, but in real life it’s no laughing matter.
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