Theresa May has returned naked from the conference chamber

Another day, another humiliation. For Theresa May, it seems, every day is Mayday. She returns from the latest EU summit in Brussels not just empty-handed, but looking like a loser. Aneurin Bevan warned the Labour Party in 1957 not to “send a British Foreign Secretary naked into the conference chamber”. This week, Mrs May has returned naked from the conference chamber. Next week, she will have to face Parliament stripped not only of authority, but of dignity too.

A Franco-Irish axis succeeded in striking out a form of words in the summit’s concluding statement offering some reassurance that for the EU the backstop “does not represent a desirable outcome”. The Brussels summit also refused to confirm that the backstop “would only be in place for a short period”. An Austro-Finnish proposal for an emergency summit next month was rejected despite German support.
Mrs May was rebuffed despite a pathetic plea to avoid “an accidental no deal with all the disruption that would bring”. The only possible interpretation of the EU stance is that any no deal outcome would not be accidental, but deliberate. They are prepared to take that risk because they think Mrs May is bluffing. Their calculation is that the House of Commons, and the Conservatives in particular, still haven’t got the message. Though he is said to be sympathetic to the British predicament, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, the Danish Prime Minister, summed up the mood in Brussels: “The British Parliament needs to get some homework done.”

And so Mrs May was sent packing. She is no longer seen as a leader by her “partners”, but rather as a messenger. The Prime Minister has been given her marching orders by “President Juncker”, as she refers to the bureaucrat who has turned mediocrity into an art form.

This diplomatic death by a thousand cuts cannot continue. On David Dimbleby’s poignant final edition of BBC Question Time, David Davis reminded the audience that the EU never agrees anything until the last minute before midnight. The House of Commons now has the opportunity to remind its European counterparts that a parliament can be more than just a debating chamber. In British history, it has also on occasion been a decision-making body. Parliament has been told that the Withdrawal Agreement cannot be voted on until January, but it can still achieve something useful before Christmas. There is no longer any point in delaying preparations for the UK to leave the EU without a deal. The Commons should tell the Government to step up such measures with all necessary speed: “Action this day.” Brussels should understand that Britain can and if necessary will leave without a deal.

Such preparations have already been made by most businesses that are likely to be directly affected. It is only the Government that is dragging its feet. The Civil Service genuinely fears a no deal Brexit, but the duty of civil servants is to provide for all eventualities. It is not acceptable for the private sector to take the hit while the public sector thinks it can get away with a wing and a prayer.

How bad would a no deal scenario be? That depends on how the EU chooses to play it. On Tuesday the European Commission will publish its game plan. Its doubtless dire predictions should however be taken with a pinch of salt.

Consider the German economy: it shrank by 0.2 per cent in the third quarter of this year, mainly because of bottlenecks in the German car industry caused by the introduction of new safeguards in the aftermath of the diesel scandal. That indicates just how dependent on car exports the German economy still is. The UK is Germany’s third or fourth biggest export market, and for cars it is the biggest: one in seven German cars is bought by the British. Tariffs or non-tariff barriers to that trade would be catastrophic for the German car industry — and might wreck the fragile coalition that keeps Angela Merkel in office.

So whatever the EU Commission may say next week, Berlin won’t allow serious disruption to trade with the UK. Mrs May should abandon Project Fear and go back to her earlier mantra: “No deal is better than a bad deal.”