A rabbit in the headlights

Tomorrow evening the vote is expected to take place which will determine whether the deal which Theresa May’s government negotiated with the EU has been accepted by the British parliament. At this stage the likelihood is that it will be rejected and much ink has been spilled in determining what will happen thereafter. In the event that this is the case, what will matter for the government is the margin of defeat. A narrow margin could mean it comes back in a revised form: A wider one will have bigger ramifications. Whatever happens, the vote will not be the end of the matter – assuming the deal is voted down, it will merely mark the first stage of a process as the government tries to figure out what to do next. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I maintain that an extension of the Article 50 period remains the best option to give the UK some breathing space and will also ease the pressure on the EU in the face of a no-deal Brexit.

In the event that the cliff edge Brexit is avoided in March, this will be no thanks to the efforts of the British government whose strategy and tactics in the wake of the 2016 EU referendum have been abysmal. Two years ago, Theresa May set out her objectives for leaving the EU in her (in)famous  Lancaster House speech. With hindsight, it increasingly looks like the hollow rhetoric of a leader who has proved unable to deal with the Realpolitik of Brexit – not that I can think of any other currently active politician who could have done a better job. As they say of the manager of the English national football team, the prime minister’s job right now is an impossible one.

Nonetheless, there is a lot in the 2017 speech that looks dated and much that was undeliverable even then. One of the things that jumped out at me was the sentence: “Unlike other European countries, we have no written constitution, but the principle of Parliamentary Sovereignty is the basis of our unwritten constitutional settlement.” It is this lack of any written rules which has made the current parliamentary debate so problematic. It explains why I am unable to give a concrete answer to many of the questions put to me by international investors, who expect the UK government to be following some kind of script (the most frequently asked question is what is the timetable for tomorrow’s process. The truth is there isn’t a fixed agenda: The vote will happen when the debates are finished). The fact that no codified agenda exists has allowed both government and parliament to make up rules as they go along (pace last week’s concerns that the Speaker of the House of Commons was able to intervene in issues of parliamentary procedure).

Perhaps an even bigger irony is that the government has tried to thwart parliamentary sovereignty at every stage. It initially tried to port all EU law into the Great Repeal Bill but was forced by the courts to allow parliament a say in the legislation. In late 2017, the government was forced to give parliament approval of the final terms of the withdrawal deal (the meaningful vote, which takes place tomorrow). It has since had its wings clipped further by MPs who increasingly demand amendments to government legislation. This is a consequence of the fact that the government is weak and rudderless and having lost its parliamentary majority in 2017, it is struggling to stay afloat.

The rest of the speech does not look good in hindsight either. Remember this gem: “we will take back control of our laws and bring an end to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice in Britain”? That would be the same ECJ which will have such an influence over the future relationship between the UK and EU. Or this: “A stronger Britain demands that we … strengthen the precious union between the 4 nations of the United Kingdom … And I hope that same spirit of unity will apply in Northern Ireland in particular over the coming months in the Assembly elections, and the main parties there will work together to re-establish a partnership government as soon as possible?” The devolved Northern Irish Assembly has not convened since 9 January 2017. At  a time when Northern Irish affairs are at the heart of the Brexit problems, the body  responsible for overseeing issues in the province has been conspicuous by its absence (to be fair, the government is not to blame, but the DUP which has “supported” the government since it lost its majority in June 2017 is culpable).

As I pointed out at the time, the Lancaster House speech was nothing more than a wish list. Let’s start with “Brexit must mean control of the number of people who come to Britain from Europe.”  The proposed transition agreement requires the UK to maintain free movement at least until end-2020 and those MPs pushing for a Norway-style agreement with the EU seem blind to the fact that a prerequisite for such an arrangement is acceptance of the four freedoms. The PM went on to demand that “I want us to have reached an agreement about our future partnership by the time the 2-year Article 50 process has concluded.” Not going to happen! The best the UK can hope for is that the status quo is maintained post-29 March. And of course the 2017 speech was famous for the phrase “no deal for Britain is better than a bad deal for Britain.” Never was so much nonsense talked to so many by so few. If no deal is such a great idea why has the government done so much to prevent the UK falling back on WTO rules?

More than anything, May painted so many red lines in the January 2017 speech that it created a number of hostages to fortune. The charitable explanation is that she was unsure of her position at the head of her party and had to throw scraps of red meat in order to keep the Brexit ultras onside. But because she made so many undeliverable promises, from which she was forced to backtrack, May has given the impression that she has been chasing events rather than setting the agenda. If her vote is defeated tomorrow night, it is hard to see where she goes from here. If she fails to deliver Brexit on 29 March, the whole premise of her term in office will be called into question. Even Jose Mourinho’s past record did not prevent him from being sacked as Manchester United manager, and Theresa May’s track record is far less impressive.