Pre-ideological dithering

Ideologies do not come ready-formed, and emergent raw material has to be worked on before it can be fitted into ideological categories. The events in the early stages of moral panics, show outrages being reported but the press and others are not yet clear about how exactly to describe them --isolated scares, or symptoims of underlying malaises. The press and others have to work to connect them into main narratives.

Such seems to be the early stage of reporting on May's proposals for Brexit. Remainer presspeople don't like May, but dislike even more Leaves like Rees-Mogg or Johnson who must never be encouraged, even if they must sometimes be reported. Remainers don't like the proposals and EC rejection would only prove them right all along about the fantasy elements of Brexit, but they fear a move to even more dislike of EC highhandedness and a push for no deal if proposals are contemptuously rejected. 

A similar dilemma confronted liberals over Trump's summit with Kim, said a Private Eye piece  -- liberals wanted Trumpt to fail but they also wanted peace: in the end, hatred of Trump was postponedand the apparent deal was met with only faint praise

Thus we find the Observer dithering. The headline seems to emphasise what might be the main threat:

Theresa May’s EU deal under fire from hardline Brexiters 

But the subheading offers a kind of balance to the hardliners' threat...

Anti-EU MPs warn blueprint could be worse than no deal, while entrepreneurs say plans are unworkable

The 'entrepreneurs' ( always a good word) in question are those wanting full integration with the EU customs' union, instead of the May offer to collect EU tariffs if incoming goods are destined to go to EU countries -- 'May’s customs proposal would be costly and bureaucratic for UK firms.'

Meanwhile:

In Brussels, which is giving little formal reaction before it has studied the white paper, sources warned that May’s customs compromise looked very similar to the “new customs partnership” that the EU rejected as “magical thinking” 11 months ago.
One senior diplomat said that the Chequers meeting had resulted in a “melange of earlier proposals that were not really feasible”. Stressing that his government needed to see the white paper before taking a position, he said: “A goulash gets better the more it is recooked. I am not sure about whether the customs proposals share the same quality.”

Rounds of drinks, gentlemen's clubs, divorces and  now cooking -- the EC is a rich source [geddit?] of homely metaphors. Normally, what 'Brussels' says would be good enough for the Graun/Observer but they are obviously holding back this time until matters clarify a bit,not least in Brussels. It's a bit of a dilemma for them -- the Leavers' might have something after all in the charge that the EC is just arrogant, unwilling to concede anything at all, and clearly the party of cheap migrant labour and 'just-in-time' globalized business. Full integration back into the EU now looks unrealistic, even to Remainerati. An obvious option -- to make May out to be the soul of reason and compromise doing her best amidst the clamour -- would also look like supporting her. Media folk support themselves and each other with that one, and sometimes the police, but party politicians never.

Meanwhile -- quelle ironie! -- balanced reporting of the positions of all sides seems to have broken out, at least until the ideological horses have been trotted round the paddock.