Coffey’s last-minute meeting sheds little light

By Janet Watts

“Why?” I asked myself. “Why has that woman bothered to organise a constituents’ meeting about Brexit?”

Why? When she’s famed for one thing only – not bothering to respond to constituents’ letters. 

Why? When she’s a well-known Government stooge? A Theresa May clone?

Why? Why? Why a meeting in the back of beyond? Out of town. Not near a train station. No bus route. Not even any parking.Of all places, why hold a meeting on the road to the Felixstowe foot ferry? About as remote a location as you could possibly get in the whole of an already remote rural constituency.

And yet – I had to hand it to her. At the last minute, she did at least bother to talk to her constituents. She did, she did.

Even so, she was pretty useless. Red-faced. Sweaty. Couldn’t look us in the eye. But she did let us ask questions. Even those of us – like me – who barracked her so much she told us to leave. And – on the whole – she made a fumbling attempt at a response. On the whole.

Except for one question. The most important one. The boy – the school student from Framlingham – 16, maybe 17 years old. Not old enough to vote when it mattered. The boy who asked:

“Please, Dr Coffey, please tell me what Brexit will do for me?”

It was the Oliver Twist question. The unanswerable question. The question that shames us. Makes us ask, “How has our country fallen so far?”

When she faced that question, she just could not answer. She just walked up and down, ashen-faced, looking away. Looking up at the ceiling. Or down at the floor. Anywhere, really. The impossible question.

So what did she say? The woman, the member, the politician – with a majority of 16,012, the sort of number that means even a donkey would get elected round here – the Minister, the supporter of a craven, corrupt, compromised Government, the person who along with her boss holds the future of the country in her hands. She said:

“Ask a Leave Voter.”