When there is a cacophony of voices all preceding their remarks
by saying that they are acting in the interests of the British
people, but then bitterly disagreeing with each other – you
know you have a problem of ego as well as of leadership. One
manifestation of it are the number of people who are
claiming that the negotiations could have been so different if only
they had been in charge of the negotiation (which uniquely in the
Brexit debates includes some of those who appear to have had that
role formally!)
The furore over the recent draft Brexit withdrawal agreement has
taken us into uncharted waters in terms of parliamentary
leadership. Arguably you do not get to become a politician unless
you can bring significant ego and adversarialism into
play in the first place. Mix that with difficult questions of
economics, constitutional governance, constituency pressures and
affiliations, and national identity, and you have the perfect
recipe for a sense of chaos and a
