It’s always been the case that politics makes strange bedfellows, but even so, the current cross-party Brexit talks between Labour and the Conservatives have produced the oddest couple in a long time: Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May. One wants to remould the capitalist order, the other simply wants to survive as party leader until Christmas.
Yet while they’ve worked together to break the Brexit impasse, both sides have made great efforts to downplay to their supporters that they are siding with their hated opponents across the aisle.
But it appears that Labour’s Barry Gardiner wasn’t sticking to the script when he appeared on BBC News today. As he got into a heated argument with the Conservative’s James Cleverly, Gardiner let slip that:
‘But the point is, you as a Brexit minister should understand that we are in there, trying to bail you guys out. We are now trying to negotiate with you because your prime minister, who has lost control of her party, who has lost any chance of getting her deal through parliament, has had to come to us and say “please, I now need to listen to the ideas that you’ve been putting forward about how we can actually get a compromise that… will get through parliament.”‘
Truly remarkable.
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