Will you be Theresa May’s Valentine this Thursday night? She’d love you to come round. But she’s in the middle of a bitter international divorce. Prepare less for candlelight, kisses and red roses, more for tears, howling and hunger.
Yes, it’s the start of another hell week on Brexit skid row. Westminster is getting ready for the biggest vote since the last big vote, this one due on Thursday evening, as the country drifts like a canoe without a paddle towards the roaring waterfall of no-deal doom.
Once again, MPs are asking each other how they can stop this. Once again, there’s talk of decisive action. Once again, they stlll can’t agree on a plan. That’s why, with just 46 days now left to March 29, when Brexit is set to happen, by law, regardless of whether there is any sort of arrangements in place or not, this week might be a good one to start stockpiling the basic foodstuffs of your choice.
I hear that one city trader is buying extra cans of chickpeas every time he shops. An informed journalist on a leading newspaper is hoarding toilet rolls. Maybe next we’ll all be given government-issue tinfoil hats.
Or perhaps this will be the week sanity and order begins to return. There’s a chance — but don’t count on it yet.
Here’s what we know so far. Tomorrow, the Prime Minister will give a statement on progress towards an alternative to the backstop on the Irish border (the backstop, remember, that until the other day she claimed was a good thing and agreed with the EU). Since she has made no progress towards an alternative, she won’t have much to say about one, which means she’ll stick to her usual dreary flurry of “let me be clear” and survive, aided by Jeremy Corbyn’s divisive incoherence.
Some of those around her are still pushing for a stronger and surprising statement, ruling out no deal now rather than having that forced on her soon — but that’s not in her nature.
What comes after that? On Wednesday MPs will table motions to amend the so-called “neutral resolution” which they will debate on Thursday, Valentines Day. This will be a rerun of the vote that took place on January 29. Then, the fabled Cooper-Boles amendment — the joint plan from Labour’s Yvette Cooper and Conservative Nick Boles to block no-deal and delay Brexit if no Government plan was in place by February 26 — was expected by many to give Parliament control. But it fell short by an unexpected 23 votes, brought down by the 14 Labour MPs who didn’t support it.
That was a morale-sapping shock for the moderates. Dare they risk a repeat vote this week? Or should they save their ammunition for later this month? It’s a tough call. Although the vast majority of MPs want to avoid no-deal and also want something better than the Government’s plan, the Commons managed to mess up badly. It united Tories around the ludicrously vague Brady amendment, which called for something other than the Irish backstop and achieved nothing. But it voted down the Cooper-Boles plan to delay Brexit, which could have achieved a lot.
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So what now? Some argue that rather than risk Cooper-Boles again (or another amendment from others pushing for something like it), MPs should simply vote on Thursday to force the Prime Minister to bring things to a head by the end of the month. Labour is promising to back an amendment calling for this.
It’s like lighting the fuse wire to trigger a delayed explosion. The PM will be given a few days more to get a new offer from the EU and get it through Parliament. She’ll struggle — there’s been far more talk than evidence of Tory rebels or pro-Brexit Labour MPs coming late to her rescue. Then the “meaningful vote”, which saw her crash to one of the biggest defeats in Parliamentary history in January, would be held again. That’s the moment, probably on February 27, that the fuse would burn and detonate her Government if she doesn’t herself retreat, delay Brexit and seek a new route forward.
As many as 40 Tory MPs are said to be ready to resign at this point as ministers and parliamentary aides, to vote for a delay to Brexit and a block on no-deal. It sounds dramatic and, in a way, reassuring — a firm safety barrier just when we need one. But would it work? What if the MPs don’t resign, after all? Isn’t it just a way of giving the PM another fortnight in which to do nothing? It brings a no-deal disaster two weeks closer, with all the panic and economic harm that would do — and the chance that by accident it might actually happen.
It relies, too, on the PM finally allowing the Commons to take control of the process from the end of the month. Why would she when she’s fought it so long? She might instead try to delay the meaningful vote until mid-March, by which time the only alternative to no-deal might be to pass her unloved plan in a panic? It’s her best hope of survival.
There’s another risk with delaying the decisive moment, too. Even if a glorious Commons rebellion in the dying days of February blocks no deal, it won’t have force of law. The motion would still be trumped by the March 29 exit date, which is set in legislation. Few noticed that the Commons actually did vote against a no-deal Brexit on January 29 — backing an amendment from Tory MP Caroline Spelman — and nothing changed.
This time, to avoid that, Parliament — Lords as well as Commons — would have to rush through an emergency law to enforce its will, perhaps without Government help. That might not even start until March 3 — with hardly any days left in the Commons until Brexit. Is there time?
The EU Council meets on March 21. If Britain is going to delay Brexit next month, that might be the deadline by which to do it. It adds up to peril: Parliament might set itself against no-deal, only to find it has done so too late. It’s like the end of Romeo and Juliet. We might all die by mistake, just as rescue arrives.
So today and tomorrow there’ll be pushback from those who want to force the choice this week. Maybe, by Thursday, MPs will find themselves voting on an amendment with teeth. Their hand would be stronger if moderate rebels in both parties weren’t split on something else. Some want to scrap Brexit and call a second referendum — among them former attorney general Dominic Grieve, who writes on this paper’s comment pages today. But so far, these Remainers have not dared test the mood in the Commons, because they know that Corbyn won’t back one and without his support it won’t pass.
That might change — many Labour MPs and members are in uproar. Some MPs may quit. But it’s not going to happen right now. That’s why other moderates are focusing their efforts at the moment on blocking no-deal and delaying the departure date before working out what follows. Some might come around to a second referendum. Others, such as Nick Boles, say they never will.
Could a letter from Jeremy Corbyn setting out his terms for Brexit last week point to an escape route? It proposed a closer relationship with the EU than May has backed, staying in the Customs Union among other things. Many Conservatives would be tempted to back this. The PM, in her reply today, is not. There probably is a majority in the Commons for something like it if it was part of a realistic plan from a Government that could carry it out — leaving hardcore Brexiteers and pro-referendum Remainers disappointed.
"Parliament might set itself against a no-deal, only to find it’s too late. It’s like the end of Romeo and Juliet — we might die by mistake"
Some Tory centrists see the new Corbyn letter as a breakthrough. Other Labour and Tory Remainers dismiss it as empty, a stunt that would leave Britain tied to the EU on worse terms than it has now.
And anyway, how to get there? If the only way to smash the Prime Minister’s glassy-eyed insistence that Brexit will happen on her terms, on March 29, is for dozens of moderate ministers to quit very soon, then the ones who are left lingering in their jobs in a zombie Government are also the ones least likely to back a closer alliance with the EU. Even if the Commons voted for close ties with the EU, the Government could be heading rapidly in the other direction.
All sorts of things might follow fast.
A constitutional explosion, certainly. A general election, possibly. A realignment of British politics, eventually.
And Brexit? No one knows. As one of those involved puts it: “The only thing that’s certain is that there is a high degree of uncertainty.” That’s the polite description. Here’s another: it’s a bloody disaster.