This – on having an only child – is such a thoughtful

By Bryony Gordon 24th Nov 2018

I keep meaning to have another child, because as a 38-year-old mother of one - only one! -
that is what I am supposed to do. I think. I can’t be sure, of course, but if I read the cues
coming from… well, just about <everyone>, this seems to be my purpose in life - as well as
doing a job, paying a mortgage, and fighting the patriarchy. And that’s just before breakfast
(joke! It’s just a joke, honestly. This isn’t going to be a column about how much we women
do, while men just lie about watching sport, I promise. OK, maybe it will be a bit, but I mean
it in the nicest, warmest way possible).

Not a day goes by without someone or other asking me if I am going to have another child.
I’m standing there, at my desk, trying to work out how I'm going to make a nativity play
costume out of an old t-shirt and 500 packs of cotton wool, while simultaneously writing a
1,200 word feature about mental health and responding to texts from my husband asking if I
could just remind him again where it is we are spending Christmas this year, when a well-
meaning colleague, usually male, passes by and says: “oh, how is your daughter? Are you
thinking of having another one yet?”

And I want to say: “another one? Am I thinking of having <another> one? I already have two
children, if you include my 38-year-old husband who, in stark contrast to his five-and-a-half-
year-old child, seems incapable of writing down simple instructions and memorising them. I
wonder, are you thinking about taking on another job and sacrificing your weekly visits to the
golf course? No? Well there you go then.”

Bryony with her daughter EdieCredit: Geoff Pugh/TMG

But I don’t say that, of course, because I have learnt from experience that this is viewed as
passive aggressive, when as a woman I am just supposed to be passive.

Was I surprised to read, this week, that one in five mothers stop after ‘just’ one baby, in stark
contrast to a decade ago, when it was one in eight? No, no I wasn’t. I was just relieved to
know that I wasn’t alone in my apparent parental laziness. “Oh, you’ve only got one,” people
say sweetly, and I swear what they really mean is “wow, that poor kid, stuck with only its
parents for company,” as if we weren’t emotionally on the same level as a primary school
child.

According to the Office of National Statistics, who analysed the figures, “increasing
childlessness may be due to a decline in the proportion of women married, changes in the
perceived costs and benefits of child-rearing versus work and leisure activities… and the
postponement of decisions about whether to have children until it may be biologically too
late.”
William Hague is arguing in favour of Theresa May's Brexit agreement. But
why?
By William Hague 26th Nov 2018
Why would I, as someone who campaigned so hard against joining the euro and opposed a
whole string of EU treaties, vote for the deal Theresa May is now presenting to the country? I
have to recognise that many people I like and respect are dead against it, and that would no
doubt include many of my former constituents in Yorkshire.

Like them, I can hardly regard it as the perfect deal, and can think of changes I would have
loved to make to it, particularly with regard to the so-called backstop and the risk of getting
stuck in it.

And I don’t think the whole process has been beautifully handled. I argued in these pages
after the uncertain outcome of last year’s election that expectations of what could be
negotiated needed lowering then, and the Cabinet should have faced up to the need
for awkward compromises. If that had happened, perhaps people would not feel so
disappointed and outraged now.

So why then, if I was still an MP, would I nevertheless be preparing to vote for the
withdrawal agreement signed in Brussels on Sunday, all 585 interminable pages of it? It boils
down to eight reasons, and here they are.

First, an important part of the case for leaving the EU was avoiding getting caught up in
“ever-closer union”, with a European Army and a steadily more centralised union, with more
and more of our laws decided outside this country. There is now absolutely no doubt,
provided we leave with this deal or anything like it, that however much the EU manages to
integrate and amalgamate in the future, we are not expected to be part of that. That’s a
massive change.

Second, the other crucial argument for Brexit was that we should once again control our own
borders. It is impossible to capture in a sentence why the majority voted Leave, but fair to say
that they wanted trade with Europe but with us deciding ourselves who comes to live here.
The most important and vital fact about the deal in front if us is it delivers that.

Everyone can argue about backstops and customs agreements until they’re exhausted, but
from the end of 2020, the United Kingdom will be able to set its own rules for the skills we
want to bring in, the visa arrangements for temporary workers, the time by which they have to
leave, and every other aspect of our immigration laws. Whether we were for or against Brexit,
that is an advantage of it, given the vast scale of potential migration into Europe in the future,
and it’s a huge development.
Third, critics of the deal have many legitimate points to make about how much we will still be
following EU rules on manufactured products because of the compromises made over the
Irish border. But do they realise that exports of goods only account for 15 per cent of our
GDP, with half of that going to the EU? Could those critics just possibly, I politely suggest,
be living in an earlier century? In the 1850s we were the workshop of the world. Now we are
a massive service economy, selling ideas, financial products, software, movies, consultancy
and education. Customs arrangements and manufacturing rules don’t bind any of these things.

Fourth, the fear that we will nevertheless become trapped in a never-ending backstop is
understandable. Yet I don’t think the EU will want that anyway. It would mean we would
have pretty open trade with them while ending free of movement of people, and that might
well become attractive to other countries over the years. So they have their own incentive to
move on to a future free trade agreement to supplant the backstop.

Fifth, speaking frankly, I think the behaviour of the other parties is utterly dishonest. Labour
is going to oppose the deal on the basis of a complete fiction: that they could negotiate all the
advantages of EU membership while still leaving. The Liberal Democrats have stopped being
democrats, and want to ignore the referendum result. The SNP never act in the interests of the
UK as a whole. I just could not bear to go through the voting lobby with this totally appalling
bunch. Sometimes the only way to know how to vote in parliament is to see who you would
be voting with, and go the other way.

Sixth, Brexit ought to be delivered. I voted Remain in 2016 but have always said that the
result should be faithfully implemented. If the deal goes down to defeat, I’m not at all sure
that it will be. I can see Brexit being delayed, or diluted, or never happening at all. I don’t
think the EU would be able to negotiate a different deal, even in the unlikely event that they
wanted one. This is the best bet.

Seventh, I want Theresa May to remain Prime Minister and see Brexit through. There are a lot
of outstanding and talented people on the way up in the Conservative Party, which is one of
the few bright spots in the darkened sky of British politics. But they’re not yet ready for the
very top. And having been the leader when I was 36, I know.

Eighth, I still travel abroad a lot of my time, and I am very conscious of how the rest of the
world views this country. Contrary to what many might think, most people overseas have
taken the idea of Brexit in their stride, and it has not fundamentally changed what they think
of Britain. But becoming a complete shambles is another matter.

I don’t know what will follow a decisive rejection of the deal. It could be a constitutional
shambles, a second referendum shambles, a no-deal exit shambles or a Corbyn government
shambles. I just know that it will be an abysmal shambles whatever would happen next.
People who say that the deal is the worst of all worlds haven’t understood how bad things
might get.

There are times when MPs should be like detectives or lawyers, burrowing into the smallest
details of a text. But there are others where they have to look at the big picture, weigh the
overall consequences of their vote, understand there are good arguments on each side, but
recognise that compromises have to be made. This is one of the latter.

I’m not there any more in the Commons, but these are the reasons I would vote, all things
considered, with Theresa May.