Jumping The Queue And Other Lies

Theresa May, who brought us the hostile environment, the "citizens of nowhere" speech, and the Windrush deportations, has struck again. This time, trying to sell her embattled Brexit deal to the public, she has said it will stop EU citizens from "jumping the queue" ahead of "engineers from Sydney or software developers from Delhi".

This is offensive nonsense. There is no queue; EU citizens have exercised a right of free movement guaranteed by international treaty. But it's revealing of the aims and likely outcome of Brexit.

Theresa May. Source: The Independent/Reuters

What does May mean by this phrase? Of course, some of it is tribal signalling, almost beneath the level of spoken language. "Britain good, Europe bad" is the crude subtext. For this purpose, she might as well be flinging her own feces at a European flag. But there's something more interesting going on here.