When it comes to the crunch, May will opt for a super-soft Brexit
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For a few glorious days in January, it looked like the Prime Minister was going to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Against all the odds, she had managed to unite her warring party under the umbrella of the ‘Brady amendment’, which signified that MPs would back her deal after all – but only if the hated backstop was changed.
With a new spring in her step, our beleaguered Prime Minister returned to Brussels to reopen the Withdrawal Agreement… only to discover that the EU wasn’t having any of it.
Fast forward three weeks and the PM is back to square one. Last night, the Government was defeated by 303 votes to 258 on a non-binding motion which appeared to endorse both Parliament’s commitment to avoiding no deal and Parliament’s vote to pursue a deal like May’s, minus the backstop. In short, Parliament has gone back to giving the Prime Minister – and her deal – the finger.
So, what now?
Well, it looks like crunch time will be 27th February, when another ‘meaningful vote’ on the deal is scheduled. Assuming the EU doesn’t suddenly decide in the next two weeks that the backstop was a silly idea after all, May will be looking down the barrel of a gun.
She will then have two options. Either, she will preemptively – before any vote on the so-called Cooper/Letwin amendment – surrender to MPs’ lobbying and agree to ask the EU for a Brexit delay. Or, she will allow her deal to be eviscerated, and stand back as the legal default – no deal – becomes reality.
Neither is tempting. By delaying Brexit, she paves the pay for a UK-wide customs union (the only way out of the backstop, according to the EU) and she knows that that would send the ERG berserk. On the other hand, not acting, and thereby paving the way for no deal, would result in the resignations of 15 or so ministers, including a minimum of three in the cabinet (Rudd, Gauke, Clark).
From everything we’ve seen of May so far, she likes to keep her friends close and her enemies far away. She depends on Rudd, Gauke and Clark, and will want to heed their advice. If that means facing the wrath of the ERG, then so be it – they’ve given her grief from the beginning anyway.
Presented with a party-splitting no deal, or a party-splitting UK customs union, Theresa May, a remainer at heart, will opt for the latter.
