Brexit vote: the Government’s ‘decoupling’ strategy fails to deliver

Theresa May’s deal has been defeated for the third time. The margin of defeat may have shrunk considerably from two weeks ago, but losing by 58 is still a significant defeat by any normal standards. Today was the last chance to guarantee the UK would leave smoothly with a deal on 22 May. A Parliament that appears unable to produce a majority for anything now faces an unpalatable choice – a No Deal Brexit in just two weeks, or a long extension involving European Parliament elections.

The Government’s strategy in today’s vote was to separate out the legally binding Withdrawal Agreement and the non-binding Political Declaration, and have MPs vote solely on the former. As I argued yesterday, this plan had merits in theory. Many Labour MPs have no real issue with the Withdrawal Agreement itself – their quarrel relates to the future relationship. On Wednesday night, all but 8 Labour MPs voted for one of the four ‘soft Brexit’ options in indicative votes – all of which would require this Withdrawal Agreement as a pre-requisite. With this in mind, the Government clearly concluded that if disagreements over the future relationship could be put to one side, there might be a theoretical majority for the Withdrawal Agreement alone.

However, today’s vote showed that this theoretical majority could not be translated into practice. The ‘decoupling’ plan was primarily aimed at Labour MPs. Yet in the end, just five Labour MPs voted for the Withdrawal Agreement, only two of which were new converts – Rosie Cooper and Jim Fitzpatrick. Another two – the long-standing Labour Leavers Dennis Skinner and Ronnie Campbell – abstained. When one considers that there are at least 30 more Labour MPs who are committed to delivering Brexit, this is a very poor return.

Matters were also not helped yesterday by yet another controversial decision by the Speaker, John Bercow, who opted not to select any of the amendments tabled to yesterday’s motion. One of these, from the Labour MPs Gareth Snell and Lisa Nandy, sought to guarantee Parliament a stronger say in the future UK-EU relationship. Had this been selected and passed, the Labour rebellion could have been considerably higher.

With the Labour shift towards the deal so low, it is hard to argue that the decision to ‘decouple’ the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration really made much of a difference to the result. The margin of defeat was reduced primarily by the fact that over 40 MPs from the European Research Group (ERG), including Jacob Rees-Mogg, Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab, decided to vote for the deal – having previously rejected it twice. Since this group’s key objection is to the Withdrawal Agreement, the removal of the Political Declaration probably played little part in their decision to switch sides. Instead, their primary motive was fear that Brexit might not happen at all.

It was notable that so many ERG MPs switched sides despite the continued opposition of their erstwhile allies, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). The two groups have long worked hand in glove, but when push comes to shove they have fundamentally different priorities. The DUP are pro-Brexit, but ultimately prioritise the union; the ERG are pro-union, but ultimately prioritise Brexit. The fragility of the ERG-DUP axis has been evident for a while, and it seems the cracks are finally starting to appear.

Ultimately, there was a central contradiction at the heart of today’s vote. On one side, dozens of Conservative Brexiteers voted for a Withdrawal Agreement which they detest. On the other side of the House, dozens of Labour MPs voted against a Withdrawal Agreement which they have no substantive problem with. The latter group may complain of a ‘blind Brexit,’ but the future relationship cannot be certain before it is negotiated. Even if MPs can unite around a compromise for the future relationship in the second round of indicative votes next week, they are going to have to vote for this Withdrawal Agreement at some point if they really want to deliver a smooth Brexit.