In my view, Rees-Mogg is deluded. His new offer to Theresa May is that he might be minded to vote for the Withdrawal Agreement (WA), as long as she removes the “backstop” part of it. Unfortunately, the backstop is one of the major parts of the WA. T May might want to remove the backstop, but unfortunately this has been included as insurance in case a future trade deal can't be reached, and the EU won't countenance reopening the Withdrawal Agreement.
At the same time, May is inviting MPs from across the House for talks on how to resolve the Brexit logjam, but she doesn't seem to be willing to accept suggestions from others – it seems to be an exercise to persuade others of the excellence of her ideas. She saw that she was going to lose the meaningful vote before Christmas so she pulled the vote, but she then brought the same vote back mostly unchanged and lost anyway. She lost by the largest margin suffered but any government ever, in the history of the UK parliament.
And yet she doesn’t seem to have any alternative. She keeps circling back to this deal which was voted down by 230 votes, apparently thinking that if the EU provide some warm words, MPs might be persuaded to vote for it. The trouble is that warm words and assurances don’t change the wording contained in a legally binding document. Even if she exerts more pressure on her MPs (because Labour MPs aren’t feeling the pressure), she won’t be able to persuade enough of her side to vote for the WA so that it passes.
Then there are other actors in Parliament, trying to drive their agendas.
Brexiters are supporting an amendment to put a time limit on the backstop, which might get some support but won’t be agreed to by the EU. What would be the point in having an insurance policy which expires before you need it to? Remember, the backstop kicks in on a certain date *if* we haven’t agreed a future trade deal with the EU. So, if the EU won’t agree to a time limit on the backstop, this amendment is dead in the water, as far as I can see.
In my view, and given the length of time that trade deals take to complete, having the backstop start from December 2020 is too early. It should be 2022 at the earliest, and possibly as late as 2025. And until the future trade arrangements are agreed or the backstop does kick in, we should continue as we are, as a member state. Murrison today described the WA or the backstop as “not having an Article 50”, i.e., we are leaving one international treaty which did have a break clause, to join another one which doesn’t. And I can see the logic in that, but the EU has been a trusted partner for the last 40 years, and I don’t think we need to suspect them of acting in bad faith now.
The other amendment which is important is the Cooper amendment. This proposes that if there is no deal agreed by 26th February, then Mrs May should seek an extension to Article 50 from the EU. This would be a way for Parliament to “take No Deal off the table”, to use a well-worn phrase. This is a cross-party amendment so it should get considerable support. The majority of MPs don’t want No Deal, so extending the Article 50 deadline makes sense. I’ve also seen reports that the Labour leadership might encourage / whip their MPs to vote for this amendment. There are a couple of issues with this though, and I’ll describe them here.
If Labour whip their MPs to vote for this amendment, then it becomes a party political issue. Tory MPs might respond by voting it down, and that would include the DUP. How arrogant, they might think, for these people to think they can instruct our PM to act in a certain way? They might not be able to support this amendment on those grounds. The amendment has been proposed on a cross-party basis – Nick Boles and Oliver Letwin (Tories) have also been involved in putting this together – but the Tories might vote along party lines and support the PM.
Then there are a largely silent (as far as I can see) rump of MPs who believe that the “Will of the People” must be enacted, and it would be wrong to delay leaving the EU. If we did delay, it might even lead to us not leaving at all. If we delay once, what is to stop us delaying again? And again? Such a move would be a “betrayal” of the public, and it would go against the decision they took on 26th June 2016. These MPs won’t support an extension to Article 50.
The amendment would only kick in if we don’t have a deal by 26th February, but given the way things are going, do we think a deal is likely by that date? I would suggest that is a question to which the answer is “no”.
If we ignore these likely naysayers, and assume the amendment is passed, what is the likely response from the EU when we request an extension to Article 50? I would suggest that they will ask us why we want to extend Article 50, and what purpose the extension will serve. If the extension is only so that Parliament can continue internal squabbles about what it is that they want, I think that the EU might take a dim view of this. They might allow the extension once, but if that doesn’t result in a decisive outcome, any further requests for extension might not be granted. It may be that the first request isn’t granted.
Given all the above, I think it is perfectly possible that we can still leave without a deal on 29th March. Luckily, I've got a “Trading Places bet” (I.e., £1) with PaddyPower at 6/1 that we do leave without a deal. I think this is still likely despite the fact that a number of sources are advising that we don’t have enough time to enact all the legislation required to allow us to leave the EU. I guess it will be passed shortly after we’ve left.
I would be happy to be proved wrong by events next week, and if we don’t leave, or leave later, or leave on more favourable terms, I’d be happy to lose £1. At least things might not change dramatically. Either way, it’s going to be interesting.
TTFN.
