Polly Toynbee
As rumours flew that her Brexiter enemies were calling for her head in no-confidence letters, out she stepped alone. After five gruelling hours convincing her cabinet, a beleaguered prime minister stuck to her friendless deal: sticking is what she does best.
Now the arm-twisting, the bribery and the for-the-good-of-the-country cajoling of every last MP begins in earnest. Pinned to the wall, each must finally reveal their true colours; some will be principled, some not: Tories must reckon if the future is with Theresa May and her deal, or with Brextremists in their constituencies. Any Labour would-be defector must reckon whether their local party could ever forgive them for voting to keep this government in power.
Meanwhile, Brexit mis-selling continues unabated. In her statement on Wednesday evening, May said that her deal would give us back “control of our money, laws and borders”, while protecting business and jobs. None of that is true. Nowhere is there any evidence to be found in the lengthy withdrawal deal.
For the foreseeable, we are in a customs union we cannot leave without EU permission and our borders are open to EU citizens. We are paying £39bn, business has no certainty for future investment and as for jobs – well, let’s just cross our fingers and hope. May pretends that some distant sunlit trade deal, hazily sketched, will one day emerge from the political declaration that accompanies the deal. Will it be in two years, 10 years, sometime, never? No one knows.
All the devilish dilemmas remain. All the impossibilities are as impossible as they were on referendum day – but now they are solemnly written down on paper. We can’t have frictionless EU trade without a customs union, but that stops us buccaneering the globe for those exclusive deals with Mauritania or wherever else Liam Fox chooses to turn to. Ireland stands where it did: preserving an open border, made possible by the Good Friday agreement, means the UK must stay close to the EU forever. Scotland is righteously rebelling: David Mundell, with his crucial 13 Scottish Tory votes in parliament, will not countenance continued EU rights to fish in our waters; Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, protests at Scotland being denied Northern Ireland’s competitive advantage of effectively staying in the single market – a special status the DUP also objects to. Today takes us closer to fracturing the union.
With withering mockery, Corbyn gave his best performance of the day
Remarkably, the deal has united arch-enemies of remain and leave: the European Research Group, Labour, SNP, DUP and the two Johnson brothers are all roaring the same song: give us back control. Good to hear Jeremy Corbyn at last voice full-throated opposition to the deal in PMQs today. That reminds us how powerful Labour’s voice can be once it seriously joins the Brexit battle. What opposition would not relish this chance to topple the government?
Corbyn gave his best Brexit performance so far, with withering mockery of Dominic Raab’s discovery that Dover is rather important for 10,000 trade-bearing lorries a day. He reprised Jo Johnson’s deadly Brexit Exocet comparing the chaos to the Suez crisis, and he denounced May’s false choice between “a botched deal or no deal”. As a taster of what’s to come in the parliamentary vote, the theme is Britain is losing control.
This is not the beginning of the end nor the end of the beginning. For those yearning to escape the nightmare of obsessive Brexitology, this will be the never-ending story. If parliament does vote this through, if we do depart on 29 March, then trade talks begin, churning over all the same old turf. The elastic transition will stretch into the far horizon, while the Brexilunatics bay at the moon still claiming a sudden-death clean break would magically solve all problems. If the economy falters, they will blame vassalage to Brussels, while remainers blame Brexit. In the battle for “I told you so”, the defining divide of a generation will never end.
If, on the other hand, May fails to scrape a majority, Labour will push for a confidence vote. Such a monumental policy collapse should surely bring down a government and cause a general election? But unless the Tory schism drives them mad (which it might), their MPs will rally round: whatever the fate of their hapless leader, there will be no election. Instead factions will put up every other option – Canada, Norway, Switzerland and no-deal – but none commands a majority.
Public patience may be stretched beyond endurance, but at least everyone will know the long-ago referendum promises were, well, let’s say economical with the actualité. What happened to “Take back control?” Yes, David Davis really did promise a Brexit with “the exact same benefits” with “no downside”. Liam Fox really did promise a free trade agreement would be “one of the easiest in history” and John Redwood and Michael Gove both said “the UK holds most of the cards”. In the cold light of day, the actual deal has blown away the fantasies.
What then? As every option is beaten to a pulp, polls show people already think asking them is the right solution. Sardonic old Ken Clarke had the best last line today: “I wish the prime minister well in obtaining a majority for some course of action that is in the national interest.”
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