The Tories made no effort to establish how bad a nuclear Brexit would be before crudely threatening the EU with it!

In January 2017 the right-wing press reacted with glee to Theresa May's lamentable Brexit speech. They loved the abandonment of the Single Market, the ridiculous threat-based posturing, the demands for special favours for UK based corporations, and the ridiculously over-optimistic fantasy of a Tory-Trump trade deal that would actually be good for Britain.

Those of us who pointed out that Theresa May's threat-based "negotiation strategy" is the diplomatic equivalent of a toddler tantrum were drowned out by the blind jingoism of the right-wing press and the tide of insults from the Brexit enforced optimism mob. It's taken a couple of months but the reality of Theresa May's threat to launch a mutually ruinous nuclear Brexit if she doesn't get her way is beginning to hit home.

Under questioning from the parliamentary Exiting the European Union Committee the Brexit minister David Davis openly admitted that the Tory government has done absolutely nothing to establish what the economic consequences of a retaliatory nuclear Bexit would be.

This is an absolutely extraordinary admission. The Tory government have openly admitted that the central plank of their so-called "negotiation strategy" is to threaten to do something that they haven't even bothered to investigate the consequences of.

This is a textbook example of a shambolic government recklessly playing fast and loose with the economic future of the entire country. They don't care whether what they're threatening causes an absolute economic catastrophe. They don't care so much that they haven't even lifted a finger to establish how bad the economic fallout could be!

People should be absolutely outraged that Theresa May has been threatening to do something that she hasn't even bothered to investigate the consequences of, but as usual, the press reaction has been ridiculously timid.

As much as I have my political differences with Hillary Benn, at least he tried to hold the Tories to account in the Brexit committee, but the press have done nothing to explain the horrifying significance of David Davis' admission.

It was bad enough that after six tedious months of waiting for it, the Tory "negotiation strategy" was nothing more than "do as we say or we'll blow up an economic bomb and then you'll be sorry", but now it's absolutely clear that they didn't even bother to investigate how big the economic bomb is, nor whether the explosion will actually do more damage to the UK than the EU!

Surely such utterly reckless ineptitude is making it clear to even the most ardent of Brexiters that the likes of Theresa May, David Davis and Boris Johnson simply aren't competent enough to steer the UK through the most difficult diplomatic period since the 1940s?

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