Theresa May is trapped between a rock and a hard Brexit
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Version 0 of 1. Theresa May is hopelessly conflicted. Quite simply, she cannot reconcile her promise to look after the interests of those who voted Remain with her commitment to a hard Brexit. To put it another way, she cannot look after the interests of the 72% of “the people” (that is, including those under 18) who did not “speak” on 23 June. For hard Brexit is what her policy is. By repeatedly placing controls over immigration above continued membership of the European customs union and the single market, she makes it abundantly clear that she has been captured by the Brexiters. The Brexiters themselves continue to be all over the place. One week one of them hints at a desire to remain in the customs union; another week another Brexiter hints that it would be nice to remain in the single market, even at a price which would make nonsense of their campaign promises. But for May at present, the obsession with immigration triumphs over our economic interests. There is much discussion in the press about the lack of clarity from Downing Street, but it is important to distinguish between the prime minister’s position on Brexit, which is as plain as a pikestaff, and the government’s position on how to handle it. This, as our recently retired ambassador to the European Union, Sir Ivan Rogers, told his staff in a farewell memorandum, is muddled and as clear as mud. Make no mistake about it, Rogers has in effect been sacked for being right: right to advise against holding a referendum in the first place; right when he saw the way the betting on Brexit was strengthening in the run-up to 23 June; right to warn that, while desperately wanting us to remain in the EU, the other 27 were not going to roll over to accommodate our every request if the outcome was Leave; right to criticise the absence of anything resembling a plan or a strategy for the coming years. In which context it would be interesting to know what evidence that well-known Brexiter Iain Duncan Smith has for his accusation on the Today programme recently that the news Rogers had warned that renegotiating our trading arrangements could take 10 years was leaked by Rogers himself. It is pretty obvious that it was leaked by the Brexit camp, as part of a nasty dirty tricks campaign to discredit a noble civil servant and diplomat – someone who was hardly an avid enthusiast for the EU, but who knew where this country’s bread was buttered, and who, indeed, was reconciled to trying to make the Brexit he had failed to ward off actually work! But back to immigration. Descended, in common with Nigel Farage and so many of my friends and acquaintances, from immigrants myself, I find it abhorrent the way that this issue has been stirred up for dubious motives. As I understand it (according to the Oxford Migration Observatory in 2015), no less than 45% of the immigrant total that so frightens people is accounted for by students, most of them temporarily resident here, and 5% by genuine refugees. And a huge proportion of the others are helping to keep this economy going, not least in the hard-pressed National Health Service. One can accept that fear or resentment of immigrants was one factor behind the Brexit vote – fomented by Farage and his sometime financier Arron Banks – but too often commentators write as if it were the only factor. Yet it is obvious that many people were concerned about “sovereignty” – mistakenly in my view – while others were protesting against the so-called “metropolitan elite”. By raising immigration and freedom of movement to her most important concern – joined increasingly, it seems, by the Labour party – May is missing a historic chance to exercise genuine leadership and focus on the many economic and social problems now facing this country: infrastructure and transport, the health service, and divisions between north and south, to name but three. This brings us to the second sphere in which she is hopelessly conflicted. So far the economy has been holding up better than expected by Michael Gove’s “experts”, but there are now a number of indications that – with inflation rising, real incomes being squeezed, and many people reaching their credit limits – the delayed impact of the collapse of the pound will gradually be felt. Meanwhile, in a little-noticed aspect of current policy, for all the emollient “one nation” talk from the prime minister, she and her chancellor are pressing on with their austerity policy, the pernicious effects of which become ever more visible. And now for May’s “negotiating position”, to be spelled out in public on Tuesday… • On the subject of loyal civil servants who can be badly treated by the system, I should like to pay a heartfelt tribute to the memory of Sir Douglas Wass, permanent secretary to the Treasury from 1974 to 1983, who has died at the tender age of 93. Sir Douglas was a great Keynesian who fell foul of the monetarist invasion of the Treasury under Mrs Thatcher. All will be revealed when Sir Brian Unwin, who was in charge of his private office, publishes his unexpurgated memoirs later this month. Sir Douglas was, of course, one of the inspirations for my fictional character, Sir Douglas Corridor. |