The Emperor’s New Clothes is usually cited as a parable of pricked vanity, but Hans Christian Andersen’s story has a subtle twist. Even after the child has declared that there are no magic clothes and the townsfolk have taken up his cry, the naked, shivering emperor does not turn back. He suspects the jeering crowd is right but he feels the procession must go on. He walks “more proudly than ever”.
This is the stage we have reached with the hard Brexit faction in the Conservative party. This week MPs allied to the European Research Group (ERG), chaired by Jacob Rees-Mogg, have been parading around Westminster in what they imagine to be intellectual finery. On Wednesday they wore solutions to the Irish border problem. On Monday, they sported confidence that within 15 years of crashing out of the EU without a deal, the UK would be a trillion pounds better off than if it had stayed in the club.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2COUM6V
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