To recap, last night two amendments were voted on in the House of Commons: the Brady and Cooper amendments. Brady’s was absurd in a sickly, feverish way. The essence of it is to destroy May’s deal and force the Prime Minster to reopen discussions with the European Union so that the backstop can be changed. If you haven’t been following lately due to your head being under a pillow because you just can’t take anymore, I can say that several items of Brexit bingo were well and truly on display – you may vomit to note that “technological solutions” are back on the table. May, of course, whipped her MPs to destroy the deal she had said was the only possible route consistently for the whole of her premiership until about five minutes earlier.
The Cooper amendment was meant to make no deal harder to achieve. It failed to pass due, as usual, to Labour Brexiteers voting with the government – had they all voted with the Labour whip, the Cooper amendment would have passed.
As a result of all of this, we have been subjected to even more rubbish from the political press than has become de rigueur of late. “No deal now looks much more likely than ever….but parliament definitely won’t let that happen,” said one pundit who shall remain nameless. I could go through scores of such examples but instead, let’s focus on what’s actually true.
Last night does not make no deal any more or less likely. Whether no deal happens comes chiefly down to two factors which haven’t changed: if May will allow it to happen if her deals falls at every hurdle (she can stop it if she truly wishes) or if this fails to happen, whether parliament can unite behind something which prevents no deal. All of this is as much to play for as ever. The Cooper amendment passing would have only made a minor difference to these variables.
May’s renegotiation with the EU is almost certain to fail. It seems to me that one of two things must be true given last night’s events. Either May has gone totally mad or she is banking on the ERG either being a bunch of mugs or actually willing to back her deal at the last moment regardless, i.e. folding completely. I very much doubt her plan, if the latter possibility be true, will work. May has made the same mistake Cameron made: she thinks the Eurosceptic hardliners can be satisfied in some meaningful sense and that there is some confluence of events that will bring them back to her side. This won’t happen. Too many of them are quasi-anarchists and just want to watch it all burn. They don’t care about anything apart from Brexit, including the future of the Conservative party.
May torching her own deal was the silliest thing she’s ever done – and make no mistake, that is essentially what she’s done here. If the EU call her bluff and reopen talks, that is the crucial thing she achieved last night. For if they reopen talks around the backstop, everything else comes back into play. Lucky for her, they aren’t going to do that. I figure she must know this. Therefore, she is banking on wearing down the ERG loons. Good luck with that, Prime Minister.
Nick –
Mrs May’s Deal was voted down in the Commons by a record margin two weeks ago. So she responded by consulting various parties and interests on the options for what follows. The House of Commons has now given her a fresh mandate to negotiate further with the EU. This all seems perfectly reasonable to me. IF the EU refuses to negotiate with the UK, then at least the British public will know who to blame. But, as it happens, I think a deal will be done. We will just have to wait and see.
I think that a deal will be done too, because Corbyn and his inner circle (the unelected ones) are Brexiteers themselves. All it will need are some promises from May that we will seek a close relationship with the EU and he will tell his MPs to abstain on the Withdrawal Agreement. But I don’t expect May to last much beyond the WA passing and whoever follows her will have no compunction in abrogating any promises she made.
Funnily enough, I don’t think Mrs May will last much beyond the Withdrawal Agreement passing either. A change of prime minister in June or July looks quite likely to me. In my view, what then happens to the WA after that depends on the course of the Future Framework negotiations. I think these negotiations will be of more lasting significance than those on the WA itself. The FF negotiations have been lost sight of in all the Brexit kerfuffle. But something tells me the Tory ERG will be in on the case.
From an EU perspective, what would be the point of reopening the negotiations on the withdrawal agreement?
There are no new proposals on the table and none of May’s red lines have been shifted. Why would the EU want to waste another three months going around in circles just to get back to exactly where we are now?
The behaviour of Parliament and much of the commentariat has been utterly delusional. If MPs want to avoid crashing out of the EU with no deal then they need to start making decisions rather than trying to keep kicking the can down an ever shortening road.
From an EU perspective, what would be the point of reopening the negotiations on the withdrawal agreement?
Depends on whether they think the UK will at the last moment buckle and either agree to stay or accept the dictated terms, or whether they think the UK will stick to its guns and leave without a deal if that’s the only acceptable course on offer.
If they think the former then of course they shouldn’t reopen negotiations.
If they think the latter then, well, wouldn’t it be better to have an agreement of everything else (citizens rights, etc etc) but withotu the backstop, rather than no deal at all, something which might well hurt the UK more than the EU but which will certainly hurt the EU?
So basically it comes down to — as serious negotiations always do— a game of chicken.
The ‘dictated terms’ are the terms that Theresa May negotiated based on her own red lines. The backstop is only necessary because May is determined to leave the Single Market and the Customs Union. If the UK isn’t going to shift its position, then there is simply no point in running around in circles for another two months just to come back to the exact same agreement that is already on the table.
A no deal exit will be damaging for the EU, but less so that compromising the Single Market and, if you look at the noises coming out of the EU, they are resigned to picking the lesser of two evils and just want the whole sorry charade to be over.
Such trust that might have existed prior to May’s volte face must have wiped away, severely compromising any further dialogue. It seems obvious to me that even if the ERG decided to let through May’s agreement, this would be followed by more of the same in fighting. It would be similar if Corbyn facilitated passage of the withdrawal agreement.
It seems more and more likely that the UK has to wake up to find there is no coffee to smell, before anything can start to be resolved.