I generally hold back from comment on politics, but after the gallons of analytical ink poured, not to mention the terabytes of analysis uploaded, even the Brexiteers seem finally to have realised that Theresa May’s failure to present a strategy is the strategy.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be a strategy to provide the best possible outcome for Britain following the Brexit referendum; it appears to be strategy to avoid, or at least postpone, blowing up the Conservative Party.
Kicking the can down the street is one way of putting it, but I think Gideon Rachman found a better analogy with his story about the horse-trainer who is ordered, on pain of death, to teach the mad Tsar’s horse to speak within a year (or, say, by March 29th). Surprisingly, the trainer agrees to do this (as does Mrs May). The reason, of course, is that to refuse to agree means instant death (or, at least, deposition and Conservative Party implosion) but the trainer’s logic is sound:
‘A lot can happen while we wait: the Tsar might die, the horse might die, I might die. Or, indeed, the horse might learn to speak.’
For the rest of us, it means that the uncertainty is likely to go to the wire.