Debate fatigue

The mobile internet was broken today, so I wasn’t able to obsessively follow the news like I usually do, but it didn’t really matter, since nothing much has changed in the political landscape since yesterday; it still looks like the government is going to suffer a heavy defeat next week, and nobody knows what will happen after that.

There was an interesting YouGov poll published today, which suggested that, while practically no one ranked Theresa May’s deal as their first choice, a clear majority did choose it as their least-bad option, when the alternatives were no-deal or no-Brexit. If this is a true reflection of popular sentiment (and YouGov are fairly reliable) then May should be feeling confident; unfortunately for her though the electorate she has to convince is not the nation at large, but their parliamentary representatives, who, all the evidence suggests, are much less convinced of the merits of compromise.

There is talk of the fateful vote being postponed, presumably in the hope of a mass outbreak of reasonableness. Stranger things have happened I guess, but such a course of action seems most likely to just prolong our agony. I’m coming round to the idea that any decision will be better than continued uncertainty, so that we can start dealing with whatever mess we end up in.

Risky business

In today’s main Brexit-related development, the Government reluctantly released the full text of the legal assessment of the proposed deal, which confirmed that the much-discussed Irish backstop could not be unilaterally terminated by the UK.

In itself, this is not really new information, since both Theresa May and attorney general Geoffrey Cox had previously admitted as much, though not in such stark language. In the debate yesterday Cox made the perfectly reasonable point that lawyers can only identify potential difficulties; the decision whether the risk is worth taking is a political one. May’s argument is that it is extremely unlikely that the backstop will become permanent, if indeed it is ever activated, since both the UK and the EU would be keen to end it, and thus the gamble is justified to win the prize of a deal.

May’s opinion may be accurate, but it doesn’t matter; the mere possibility, however remote, that the backstop will persist is enough to give cover to the faction within the Tory party who are determined to oppose any agreement that fails to correspond with their delusional ideals, allowing them to present themselves as patriotic defenders of national integrity, rather than fanatical wreckers.

Still the doomed process stumbles on; there are another six days of this to endure before the parliamentary vote puts the deal out of its misery, and the real politics can begin. Of course that is when things may start to get even more ugly, but hopefully whatever relatively sensible elements remain within the ruling class will have their minds concentrated enough to steer us away from disaster.

Early update

The first skirmishes in the Brexit debate did not go well for Theresa May. She managed to lose three Commons votes in a single day, something no government has done since the 1970s, and a clear indication that she is losing control of the narrative. Her strategy depends entirely on convincing MPs that there is no sane alternative to her compromise plan, but it is increasingly evident that nobody really believes that. Parliament is polarising around a straight choice between a hard exit and staying in the EU, but it’s still unclear if either position can be sure of commanding a majority.

Some encouragement was given to the Remain cause today with the opinion from the ECJ advocate general, likely to be upheld by the full court, that the UK can call off its departure by unilaterally deactivating article 50. This, along with the vote affirming Parliament’s right to propose a plan B if and when May’s deal is rejected next week, signals a possible escape route. Another referendum would be needed to give this course of action some democratic legitimacy though.

Despite this, Leavers still have the advantage, since Brexit is the default position, so all they have to do is to frustrate any other plan for the next couple of months, a goal which they seem more than capable of achieving. If that doesn’t work they might be tempted to accept another plebiscite, in the hope that they will win again, an outcome which, although terrifying, is not unimaginable.

So, it’s no exaggeration to say that the next few days might shape the country’s destiny for a generation or two. It would be nice to think that our political class was up to the job, but the very fact that we are in this mess suggests otherwise. We’ll know the answer before too long I guess, but in the meantime there’s nothing to do but wait until the immediate drama has played out, then try to make the best of whatever situation we find ourselves in.

For the ages

I’ve been on the planet for a few decades now, so inevitably I’ve lived through some pretty momentous historical developments, some of which I’ve noticed at the time, like the end of Apartheid, or the collapse of the Soviet Union, and many more, no doubt, that have passed me by, and will only become evident later.

Anyway, everyone is saying that the looming constitutional crisis over Brexit is going to be an upheaval of similarly epochal significance, so I figured that I should try to make a record of it, by blogging every day until the all-important parliamentary vote, currently set for next Tuesday.

Theresa May seems to be sticking to her plan to rally a majority behind her patched-together deal by convincing Remainers that the alternative is a hard Brexit, while simultaneously telling Leavers that in opposing her they risk ending up with no Brexit at all. To be fair to her, it’s difficult to see what else she could do in the circumstances, and the first part of the equation could have worked out, since even the most committed Europhiles might have blinked when confronted with the threat of a no-deal disaster, as long as the fall-back position was May’s proposal, which is unpleasant, but not catastrophic. However the hard-core Brexiteers seem determined to wreck any arrangement that conflicts with their reactionary fantasies, which means that anything even vaguely in touch with reality will fail to win them over. Since any attempt at compromise seems doomed, Remainers have the motivation they need to gamble on paralysing the process and forcing a second referendum. Crucially, Jeremy Corbyn seems to be coming round to the idea of a repeat vote, as the proposition that Labour could negotiate a better deal collides with the determination of the EU to give no more ground.

Five days have been set aside for the debate, though it’s difficult to see why, since the parliamentary arithmetic seems unlikely to change. The really interesting developments won’t happen until the vote is lost anyhow. Watch this space.

On the brink

So, after what seems like an eternity of negotiation, but has actually only been a few months, a Brexit deal is finally on the table. At 585 pages it doesn’t lend itself to instant reaction, but from what I can tell it seems to propose some sort of EU-lite arrangement, which is far from the worst possible outcome, but still a pointless act of national self-harm.

That, of course, is assuming that Theresa May can steer the agreement through Parliament, which is not at all certain. Labour is set to vote against it to bring down the government. Hard-core Tory Brexiteers will oppose it in favour of the no-deal clean break they desire. Pro-Europeans from all parties may calculate that, if this deal fails, the resulting political stalemate will leave a second referendum the only way forward. It’s hard to see where the support to carry the plan through will come from, unless sufficient MPs are unnerved enough by the threatened chaos to accept a flawed arrangement rather than risk something worse.

My feeling is that things may just work out in the way I predicted back in January; May can’t get her deal through Parliament, the government collapses, Labour win the resulting election by promising a second referendum, and the nation votes to stay in the EU. I’m still planning to stockpile a lot of tinned food though…