Daniel Hannan, the conservative MEP, has an article in last Tuesday’s Sun, which I’ve only just seen: “Only hated Eurocrat Jean-Claude Juncker is stopping a quick deal to leave the EU” (I don’t like that “hated”, by the way; it’ll have been chosen by a sub-editor at the Sun and not written by Daniel Hannan. I don’t hate Jean-Claude Junker and I’m sure Daniel Hannan doesn’t either.)
Daniel Hannan argues that the behaviour of M. Junker, the President of the European Commission, is making Brexit negotiations difficult “If a deal is now less likely, it is largely because no British minister will want to have a private conversation with him”. He goes on to point out that Labour and Liberal Democrat parties side with the EU President, quoting Labour’s Brexit spokesman, Keir Starmer, and the Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron.
Daniel Hannan is a respected MEP, well informed about the failings of the EU, and was a prominent campaigner for Vote Leave. He is surely an asset to the Conservative Party, and would be even more of an asset were he in Parliament. So it’s disturbing to read, for example in the Express (Top Brexiteer MEPs ‘set to lose out on safe Westminster seats at General Election’) that his proposed candidature in Aldershot has been blocked by Conservative Central HQ.
Conservative candidates in this election are describing themselves as “Theresa May’s candidate in [insert name of constituency here]”. Daniel Hannan isn’t one of them; neither is his fellow Brexit supporter David Campbell-Bannerman. I’m afraid I think that tells us something about Theresa May’s priorities – about which more later.
Standing Up 