May for March

Yesterday’s speech by PM Theresa May, which outlined that the UK will begin the Article 50 proceedings no later than March 2017, left me feeling rather uneasy. It was a speech straight out of Conservative Campaign Headquarters casting, designed to give a reassuring feeling to the assembled masses at the party’s conference, but short on substance. There was a lot to be concerned about: Her statement that “The referendum result was clear” was a case in point. No one denies that the Leavers won the referendum, but it was by less than four percentage points. It was not at all “clear”, as the Leavers would agree had the result gone the other way. And unlike a parliamentary election, where you get a chance within five years to change the outcome, that is not possible on this occasion. So if there is to be a Brexit, it is absolutely vital to get it right, and I have many reservations that the government is going about it the right way. 

The prime minister also made it clear that “it is not up to the House of Commons to invoke Article Fifty, and it is not up to the House of Lords. It is up to the Government to trigger Article Fifty and the Government alone.” There are many lawyers who would dispute that, and indeed next week the High Court is due to give a ruling on this issue. May accused those who sought to challenge the referendum result of “not standing up for democracy, they’re trying to subvert it. They’re not trying to get Brexit right, they’re trying to kill it by delaying it. They are insulting the intelligence of the British people.” Some might say in response that a Leave campaign which blatantly lied about issues such as the cost of EU membership, and how the money saved could be used to fund the NHS, brought the process of democracy into disrepute in the first place. And whilst we’re at it, prime minister, your mandate as leader of the Conservative party was obtained with far fewer votes than Jeremy Corbyn when he won the Labour leadership contest. A little bit more humility regarding the nature of democracy would not go amiss. 

Even dangerous Daniel Hannan has admitted that the referendum result was so narrow that it is necessary to ensure that a peaceful coexistence can be maintained between the sides. We got no sense of inclusivity from PM May yesterday: Had she not (allegedly) been a Remain supporter, I could have sworn that we were listening to the victory speech of a prominent Brexiteer. The general tone of the speech suggested that the UK is on course for a ”hard” Brexit, a notion which May rejected: “there is no such thing as a choice between “soft Brexit” and “hard Brexit”. This line of argument … is simply a false dichotomy. And it is one that is too often propagated by people who, I am afraid to say, have still not accepted the result of the referendum … I know some people ask about the “trade-off” between controlling immigration and trading with Europe. But that is the wrong way of looking at things.” Again, we will have to agree to differ on that one. There clearly is a form of trade off, and to pretend otherwise is simply to ignore what other EU nations are telling us. 

The prime minister’s grasp of the economic realities of Brexit was, in my view, rather shaky. She suggested that “the referendum … was a vote for Britain to stand tall, to believe in ourselves, to forge an ambitious and optimistic new role in the world … And there is already abundant evidence that we will be able to do just that. Important foreign businesses – like Siemens and Apple – have committed to long-term investments in this country. With the Japanese purchase of ARM for £24 billion, we have seen the biggest-ever Asian investment in Britain. Countries including Canada, China, India, Mexico, Singapore and South Korea have already told us they would welcome talks on future free trade agreements. And we have already agreed to start scoping discussions on trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand.” 

Where do we start? How about the fact that the sale of ARM means that the intellectual capital, and the profits which flow from it, are no longer UK owned? Or that Nissan is delaying new investment in its Sunderland plant until the UK has concluded Brexit negotiations with the EU? Or that Australia has said that any trade deal will also have to wait until after the UK-EU deal is concluded? Or that there was no mention of any deal with the US?

However, May’s speech was of a piece with a lot of the statements out of Westminster in recent weeks. As one EU diplomat suggested, “she seems to be saying that regaining sovereignty is so valuable, she is willing to pay a price in terms of economic disruption.” Missing from the speech was any sense that this is a two way bargaining exercise. If the EU refuses to negotiate with the UK before Article 50 is triggered, and its demands are immediately rejected by a French or German government which is deeply involved in its own election campaign, the whole strategy falls apart. Moreover, once Article 50 is triggered, the UK loses any influence over the EU. The best we can say about the prime minister’s speech is that it was designed for domestic consumption only. It’s naïve to think that our EU partners are going to roll over and play ball and I suspect that this sunny optimism will not last beyond the first contact with Realpolitik.