So, it looks like we really are in the endgame of Theresa May’s premiership. Her big gamble is that publishing and voting on the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB) next month will create the breakthrough needed for her to finally leave office as the PM who ‘delivered Brexit’.
The legislation will finally see the light of day in the first week of June, probably Wednesday the 5th (the day Trump leaves the UK) or even Thursday the 6th, (wait for it) the anniversary of D-Day. But the most important deadline set by the Cabinet yesterday was that the WAB (as its known in Whitehall and Westminster) has to be passed in its entirety by the summer Commons recess, expected on July 25th. It is ‘imperative’ that it does so, ministers agreed.
This flurry of activity - with the clear message that May will announce her resignation this summer - is designed to provide enough momentum to calm the backbench 1922 Committee executive when the PM meets them this Thursday. Although chairman Sir Graham Brady hasn’t got everything he wanted (ie a fixed date of her departure), it’s now very unlikely he and fellow grandees will change their leadership rules to force May from No.10. If all goes to plan, a new Tory leader could be in place by early September, giving them enough time to unveil their new Cabinet in time for party conference.
But hang on a sec, this is Brexit we’re talking about. This will be the fourth attempt to get May’s unloved deal through Parliament. And even though talks with Labour limp on, party sources are making plain Corbyn will oppose the WAB second reading unless the PM shifts her red lines. The DUP’s Nigel Dodds warned last night: “Unless she can demonstrate something new that addresses the problem of the backstop then it is highly likely her deal will go down to defeat once again.”
May hasn’t given up hope of MPs in all parties coming to a compromise. As the Sun reports, she opened Cabinet yesterday with a warning that Brexit would never happen unless Leavers and Remainers abandoned their ‘absolutism’. “Everything in politics is binary at the moment,” she complained. Hmmm. Shot in the dark this, but maybe that’s because the 2016 referendum had a binary choice of Leave or Remain? And many would argue this issue really can’t be triangulated.
There was a marked shift yesterday from No.10, even before the June date for the legislation was confirmed. Having spent weeks insisting a ‘stable’ majority (a key demand of Brussels) was the priority, the PM’s spokesman told us that ultimately the public wanted action to show politicians were trying to deliver Brexit. “I’ve spoken in the past about the need to secure a stable majority for the WAB,” he said. “That’s obviously still important, at the same time I would emphasise sending a clear message to the public that parliament is getting on with delivering the result of the referendum.”
So, will May get a squeaked majority rather than a stable majority? If the Labour leadership and DUP continue to dig in, that means her fate will be in the hands of the 20 or so Labour backbenchers in Leave areas who want to deliver Brexit. No.10 is hoping Nigel Farage’s expected Euro elections victory next Thursday will focus minds on both sides.
But there’s a real danger that once the WAB is published (insiders who’ve seen the bill say that the backstop looks even worse in legislative black-and-white), Tory Brexiteers will kick off once more. Switchers, who held their nose and backed May on third time of asking, will become even more convinced that they have to oppose it. Their real prize is to get rid of May in the middle of this process, install a hard Brexiteer leader and try all over again.
If May is defeated a fourth time, will she have anything left? The word from May’s allies this morning is that there won’t be any fifth attempt. And that Britain would then be heading for no-deal or revocation of Article 50 by October 31, the EU’s next deadline in this process. The argument is that Brussels just won’t allow another extension.
That all feels to me like spin to focus minds. Why? It seems that the EU27 may indeed reluctantly kick the can down the road again to spring 2020. And May herself repeatedly says that Parliament will never allow a no-deal. Don’t rule out even Brexiteers agreeing a long extension that effectively ties the EU-UK trade deal to our divorce.
As for Labour, the longer things go on, the more the clamour for a second referendum will intensify and the more attractive becomes a defiantly pro-EU ‘remain and reform’ stance. One shadow cabinet minister told me yesterday that the party’s only route to winning back Leave voters was by arguing vigorously for a Left agenda on the economy and austerity, while appealing to their patriotism in other areas.
They also said many Corbyn-backing members were increasingly pushing their leader to a ‘Remain and reform’ position. The golden rule in Corbyn’s Labour Party is that nothing changes on Brexit unles Keir Starmer and John McDonnell are in agreement. And yesterday, McDonnell said this: “Deep in my heart, I’m still a Remainer”. And he claimed Corbyn was too. For all the hopes in Tory ranks that Labour will lose seats if it upsets Leavers, there are some in CCHQ who really fear an unashamedly pro-Remain Labour Party. It and the Lib Dems could mop up moderate Tory votes, while Farage steals all the Tory Leaver votes.
Meanwhile, the shadow Tory leadership race is very much on. Amber Rudd last night pleaded for her party not to abandon the centre ground. Penny Mordaunt is impressing backbenchers with a speech to protect UK armed forces from prosecution (apart from Northern Ireland cases). Boris Johnson has been notably quiet of late, probably a shrewd move given that he now appears to be doing something he previously failed: winning backbenchers needed to get him into the top two of a ballot. I’m told he has some very serious numbers.
Jeremy Hunt’s energetic manoeuvrings continued and his naked pitch for Brexiteer votes is getting more naked. During FCO questions (top spot by Quentin Letts), when asked by Marcus Fysh about a story that Olly Robbins had asked Eurocrats if he could become a Belgian citizen, Hunt’s reply was striking. Instead of defending the civil servant, he said he was “intrigued by those reports”. Yet Hunt was badly exposed later at the WSJ summit (the Guardian’s Rowena Mason sums it up deliciously HERE), when asked why voters should vote Conservative. And when pressed on whether no deal should be put back on the table by a new Tory leader, he said: “You’re giving me a yes or no question to which there is not a yes or no answer.” Which sounded a bit like, well, Mayism.
Watch Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis neatly kebab UKIP deputy leader Mike Hookem on his leader’s plan to question all Muslims arriving in the UK about the Koran. “This is Gerard’s policy on this, I’m not advocating…There’ll be a leadership election in June, then we’ll see who the new leader is”
After PMQs today, May heads to Paris for a summit on online extremism in the wake of the New Zealand attack. And she will reveal that a neo-Nazi online forum amassed 800,000 visits in just one month, with a tenth of them appearing to originate from the UK. Facebook has said it will do more to restrict such sites.
As it happens, the Times says police chiefs are warning May that anti-terrorist operations would be hampered if she bows to pressure to create an official definition of Islamophobia. The paper says the adoption of the definition could in effect make it racist to criticise Islam or “Muslimness”.
Corbyn and his team are hoping that Britons are increasingly relaxed about the state stepping in to correct market failures (polls show renationalisation is popular). Today, the Mirror reports that even the government is looking at taking back in house probation services that were disastrously part-privatised by Chris Grayling. The Times reports on leaked Labour plans to renationalise the electricity industry. Oh, and British Steel wants state aid to avoid job losses in the north East threatened by Brexit.
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