Theresa May yesterday finally unveiled her secret weapon to help sell her controversial Brexit deal: the public are bored and just want to get on with it. “The British people want this settled,” the PM said on the steps of No.10 and in the Commons chamber. It’s crude, simplistic and an indictment of the state of our political discourse, but it may just prove to be her most effective argument yet. The calculation is that Tory and Labour MPs who oppose her deal will eventually have to buckle in the face of voter anger on the doorstep at politicians playing games at Westminster. That’s why she’ll today embark on a nationwide effort to woo the public with a series of phone-ins and other events.
Of course, May’s critics will point out that May’s mess is entirely of her own making. Her decision to trigger early the ticking clock of the Article 50 exit process, without having a plan in place first; her disastrous snap election that forced her to swap her bravado of Lancaster House boasts of a hard Brexit with the Mansion House compromise of a strange, soft Brexit; and her failure to keep the DUP bound close. All of these have left her facing a potentially catastrophic Commons defeat when MPs have their ‘meaningful’ vote next month.
And yet, and yet. As improbable as it sounds, the PM’s allies still believe they can get the friendless compromise deal through Parliament. Unloved, unwanted, it may be all they’ve got (like the PM herself). I’ve done an in-depth piece HERE on how May survived her most dangerous week in Downing Street, and how she plans to somehow get through the next few weeks. One former aide, who knows May better than most, tells me that the past week – including the leadership threat – has given her a new lease of life. “It’s not like the general election disaster. There’s no tears, no shock. She’s known this has been coming for a long time and she’s had time to plan”
Plenty of MPs are predicting the 48-letter threshold would be triggered if May loses the meaningful vote. Yet one former minister points out she has amassed “the biggest client state” of any PM in the modern age. There are 40 parliamentary private secretaries, 99 ministers, 17 ‘trade envoys’ and 12 Tory party vice chairs. That’s 178 MPs in total, more than enough to secure a simple majority (158) required to avoid a leadership contest. When you understand May’s confidence that she will survive as leader, you then begin to understand why she thinks she holds more cards than many think.
Government whips haven’t given up winning the meaningful vote on the first go. But a ‘Christmas crunch’ strategy of pushing the second vote, just before or just after the festive break, is designed to pile the pressure on. The aim is to somehow tip the wobbly see-saw of Parliamentary numbers in her favour. Before then, the hard sell starts, with business and foreign leaders (Shinzo Abe isn’t just tweeting, he’s visiting London next month) others piling in to say this plan is the best we can hope for. Crucially, yesterday’s political declaration was so elastic that it gives Parliament the chance to push for a harder or softer Brexit once we’ve left next March.
Just getting to that (first) staging post is the priority for the PM. Jeremy Corbyn declared in the Commons yesterday that ‘Chequers has been chucked’ and he meant it as a criticism. But in fact the ditching of the ‘common rulebook’ (even though it’s Brussels that blocked it) could help May sell this to her Brexiteer backbenchers. The kind of Brexit on offer in that vaguely worded, adjective-tastic, 26-page document really is in the eye of the beholder.
Instead of the ‘frictionless trade’ promised in the Chequers White Paper, senior government officials admitted to us hacks in a briefing yesterday that there would be a ‘spectrum’ or ‘sliding scale’ of trade and regulatory alignment. The good-for-business case was further undermined last night when ITV News revealed that even the CBI had internal emails showing some of its experts felt that May’s deal was not a good deal.
What is much more certain is that immigration control is the real prize that May has secured in her deal. The immigration White Paper is the next bit of the sales plan, reassuring Tory backbenchers we really will ‘take back control’ of our borders, a key demand of Leave voters. Corbyn yesterday said May’s reliance on the immigration argument was a ‘dog whistle’. But the logic of his words could be that Labour is prepared to be more liberal on migration in return for full trade access – aka the Norway option of EEA membership. That would upset some Labour MPs in Leave areas, but it offers the prospect of a winnable amendment with Tory Remainers. Yet again however, May holds the trump card. She could simply ignore such an amendment.
This morning, Damian Hinds was the Cabinet Minister on the Today programme. He did a good job, sounding reasonable and candid in equal measure. But a quick glance at Today’s Cabinet guests through this week is instructive. Monday was Greg Clark, Tuesday was David Gauke, Wednesday was Amber Rudd, Thursday was Matt Hancock and today was Hinds. Every single one of them voted to Remain in the EU. None of them was a Leaver.
As I noted in yesterday’s WaughZone, Michael Gove finally came out swinging at the despatch box this week and made a robust defence of the PM, at least on the fisheries bit of her plans. In coming days and weeks, May really needs Gove (and Liam Fox) to step up to the plate and defend the whole of her document - on TV, radio and crucially in chats with wavering backbenchers. He was the minister who first suggested earlier this year that while the deal may be far from perfect, it would be up to a future PM and future governments to improve on it.
The Spectator’s Fraser Nelson reports that Gove may be among a hard core of Cabinet Brexiteers who actually hope that, once the first Commons vote is held, they can push May into a ‘mitigated no deal’ option, requesting a 12-month extension of Article 50 to hammer out side-deals to keep trucks moving and planes flying. The real problem with this plan is the PM has herself categorically ruled out, repeatedly, any delay to Exit Day. In PMQs this week, she gave Esther McVey her personal “assurance that the UK will leave the EU on March 29, 2019”. May correctly assumes that millions of Leave voters would be appalled by the idea of yet another 12 months in the EU, having been promised a specific date two years ago.
May was also categoric yesterday that she would never, ever introduce the necessary legislation for a second referendum (and a new vote would need its own legislation not amendments to motions or bills), as long as she was PM. That suggests she will simply ignore any Commons majority on the issue and dare the Remainers in her party to do their worst. Her tough line on a referendum, together with her vow to quit the EU on March 29, suggests that her threat of ‘no Brexit at all’ is really all about losing a motion of confidence that Labour is sure to demand in the Commons. But would a hardy band of Remainer Tories really take that nuclear option if it was the only alternative to no deal? I’m not sure they would.
Damian Hinds put it well when he said this morning that while it was ‘mathematically’ ‘probably true’ that there was a Commons majority against no deal, “no deal is what you have if you don’t come to some other arrangement”. Thanks to Article 50 (and May’s vow never to extend it) the anti-no-deal majority lacks any effective way of stopping a no-deal outcome. It all comes down to the fact that Parliament cannot force a Prime Minister to re-write an international treaty or hold a referendum against her will. Margaret Thatcher knew the political power of TINA – ‘There Is No Alternative’. By refusing to offer any Plan B, May knows that a no-deal exit is actually the logic of all her statements, a fact that really could force Labour to change tack after the initial vote. It’s high risk, but there’s no low-risk option left.
UKIP has continued its lurch towards extremism with its announcement that leader Gerard Batten has appointed ‘Tommy Robinson’ to be his “personal special adviser” on grooming gangs and prisons, “two subjects which he has great knowledge”. So just when the party could have emerged as a focus of opposition to May’s Brexit, it flunks it more than ever before. Nigel Farage says his party should have nothing to do with the far-right rabble-rouser. “If I achieved one thing in British politics, it’s that I almost single handedly did kill off the BNP.”
Given the planet is warming at an alarming rate, smart meters should have been a simple tool in helping the public save money and energy at the same time. Instead, the £11bn Government infrastructure project has turned into a disaster, with the National Audit Office today revealing consumers face paying half a billion pounds more than expected. There’s also “no realistic prospect” of meeting a goal of all homes and businesses being offered one by the end of 2020 as planned. Energy minister Claire Perry insists the target will be met.
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