‘Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone/Prevent the Brexiteer dog from barking with a juicy bone’. The hot news today is that Theresa May will try to reset the countdown clock to the UK’s exit from the EU. But in order to avoid an outright revolt by hardline Eurosceptic Cabinet ministers and MPs, she’s had to promise that she’ll seek only a short delay of a few weeks beyond March 29. While a nation looks on again at yet more chaos in Westminster, Remainer Tories have their heads in their hands. For them, it’s a case of ‘Pour away the ocean and sweep up the Redwood/For nothing now can ever come to any good’.
Politicians are supposed to be able to campaign in poetry and govern in prose. It’s pretty obvious that May can do neither. Yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, and the PM’s reaction to the Brexiteer backlash, confirmed three key facts about her premiership: she is a prisoner, not a leader, of her party; if there’s a way to avoid long-term decisions, she’ll always take the short-term option; and she really doesn’t care about the ridicule of contradicting herself or her government.
Only last week, her de facto deputy David Lidington told MPs: “In the absence of a deal, seeking such a short and, critically, one-off extension would be downright reckless and completely at odds with the position this House adopted only last night, making a no-deal scenario far more rather than less likely.” Of course, making a no-deal scenario more likely is very much the gameplan for many Brexiteers and that’s a quote that surely Jeremy Corbyn will lob at May at PMQs at noon.
Lidington also added last week: “Not only that, but from everything we have heard from the EU, both in public and in private, it is a proposal [a short extension without a deal] it would not accept.” Well, Michel Barnier yesterday certainly put the UK on the spot, as the EU’s Brexit negotiator warned that May couldn’t bring both a long and a short delay extension request (a classic May fudge) to tomorrow’s summit. The Barnier Ultimatum was naturally delivered in French, not English, as he declared: “it’s either one or the other, isn’t it?”
May’s decision to request only a delay of up to three months (in a formal letter to EU council president Donald Tusk) will keep her fractious Cabinet together. It may also avoid her being dragged before her backbench 1922 Committee tonight (ITV’s Daniel Hewitt revealed last night Tory MPs in the Commons Tea Rooms were in open revolt, with one saying “if she doesn’t agree to this then she is gone.”) Today and tomorrow, she will have to sell the short extension idea as if it were her own.
In this surreal world of Brexit talks, it’s perfectly possible that May will go to Brussels in the knowledge that the EU could reject her request, or at least refused a full legal confirmation of it until later next week at a new ‘emergency summit’. With John Bercow having scuppered any plan to get May’s deal voted on this week, both No.10 and the EU may be aiming for the maximum pressure of next Friday’s March 29 deadline for exit day to get their way in the middle of next week. The clock could be stopped, or reset to June 30 at least, with just two days to go.
There is one final curio that Corbyn may want to raise in PMQs too. May’s own motion last week was craftily constructed to give the impression (but not the certainty) that if MPs voted against her plans, a longer extension would follow. More tricky for her is her Brexit department’s note accompanying the motion, which talks of ‘a longer extension if a deal is not approved before the March European Council’.
As it happens, there is a new ‘hard deadline’ on the horizon if May gets even a short extension. April 11 is the date now focusing minds in No.10, as it’s the last time the UK could pass legislation for UK participation in Euro elections before they take place in May. That rolling cliff-edge may then just stop rolling. It’s not clear whether May will fall over it, along with Brexit. Today, Tory MPs of all stripes are short-selling shares in their own leader’s ability to survive beyond this month. Regardless of whether she wins or loses on Brexit next week, get set for a Tory leadership contest this summer.
Next Monday is another key date in the Brexit calendar, as March 25 is the deadline under a previous Dominic Grieve amendment for the government to come up with a plan for Parliament to have its say on the deal. Lidington (him again) has indicated (and No.10 confirmed yesterday) that Monday would be when MPs would be allowed to start a debate on next steps. This is not quite indicative votes that many have been demanding, but it is meant to facilitate debate on alternatives. It’s perfectly possible that May’s meaningful vote 3 would be taken as part of that process.
But of course this weekend everyone will want to know whether May can actually get her deal through. The DUP have made clear they were nowhere near ready to approve her plans this week and we revealed last night that the Northern Irish party is not prepared to give its support unless it thinks there will be a Commons majority for it. We really are in a standoff where several groups are saying ‘you go first, we’ll follow’.
If a hardcore of 25 Tory Brexiteers refuse to budge, May will need at least a similar number of Labour MPs. They also won’t move unless they think the deal will pass. And Lisa Nandy tells me the PM has done nothing to agree to her demand that Parliament should get a vote, not just a say, on the future UK-EU trade deal. There’s chatter in Whitehall that the DUP are blocking the idea because it would dilute their own ‘seat at the table’ of future trade talks. Ministers are urging May to move and accommodate Labour MPs like Nandy. As one Cabinet minister told me: “This phrase of ‘just getting it over the line’ I bridle at. It won’t allow us to move on. We need to be targeting a substantial majority and to do that we need to reach across the House for consensus.”
Jeremy Corbyn is looking for consensus, but in a way that delights the Norway-plus wing of his party and dismays the second referendum crew. Yesterday, after meeting several MPs from all parties, his spokesman said: “should there not be a majority in Parliament for May’s deal or a public vote, Corbyn called on the other parties to engage constructively to find a close economic relationship with the EU”. That sounded as if the sequencing of Labour’s conference policy on Brexit had changed. A People’s Vote is no longer the final stop in the sequence, a soft Brexit is?
Meanwhile away from Brexit, Labour’s own internal rows continue. Yesterday’s NEC disputes and organisation sub-committees were quite a thing, I’m told. Things got off to a rocky start when Tom Watson refused to hand over his mobile phone at the start of the disputes meeting, defying a previous agreement that was aimed at preventing leaks to the media. Naturally, there were leaks to the media (namely yours truly), as the deputy Labour leader insisted he be allowed an electronic device to keep in touch with moving events on Brexit away from party HQ.
In true comradely fashion, a long debate ensued over Watson’s conduct, with some NEC members supporting him but lots criticising him. The row, plus following detailed questions raised by him over disciplinary processes, led to a 90-minute delay that meant key cases ran out of time. The incident ate into the ‘reading time’ given to NEC members to assess allegations against activists. ‘Reading time’ was introduced as a further curb on leaks of confidential papers last year, ensuring the NEC only gets documents during not before meetings. Critics say it has led to needless delay.
Anyway, the processology yesterday focused around two particular cases: Derek Hatton’s readmission to the party, and the mysterious suspension of Steve Eling, the leader of Sandwell council in Watson’s backyard of the West Midlands. Watson and others queried the procedure that led to Hatton getting provisional membership earlier this year. Unite’s Jim Kennedy, who chaired the small panel that made the Hatton decision, defended the process.
But Watson wanted notes and minutes, and details of how general secretary Jennie Formby interacted with Corbyn’s office, on the case. The issue will now go before the full NEC next week, where it will decide whether Hatton meets the ‘aims and values of the party’ test for all members (especially as a 2012 tweet appeared to be anti-semitic). As for Eling, he remains suspended and may not get to fight this year’s local elections as a Labour candidate. Watson and others warned that decision could lead to judicial review.
What was notable yesterday was the anger of Left members of the NEC at Watson’s conduct. Some claim he deliberately ‘filibustered’ the meeting to try to overturn Eling’s suspension. Others say his refusal to hand over his phone was a clear breach of the rules (“he clearly thinks he’s above the rules, it was insulting and disruptive” one NEC member says), and suggest he was asking basic questions about the party’s disciplinary processes. With Watson still demanding greater access to anti-semitism cases, yesterday was seen by many as a proxy war for things to come. Neither he nor his critics are going to give up.
Watch this guy try to take a short cut over a barrier…and see chaos ensue
The number of potential trafficking and modern slavery victims reported to the authorities has risen by 36% in a year, National Crime Agency figures show. Last year, 6,993 potential victims were referred into the government system, up from 5,142 in 2017 and 3,804 in 2016.
The New Economics Foundation has called for the cancellation of the HS2 rail link, claiming it will make the UK even more divided and should be scrapped in favour of boosting services in the less well-off parts of the country like the North. The left-leaning think tank has come under fire from the left-wing TSSA union, which wants the rail link built (with extensions) to boost jobs and connections.
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