Government concedes that Brexit 'concession' is anything but
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Version 0 of 1. As the committee stage of the article 50 bill rumbled on into its second day, Brexit minister David Jones had an announcement to make. After careful consideration of the possibility that there might be rather too many Tory rebels for comfort, the government was prepared to allow parliament a vote on Britain’s withdrawal from and future relationship with the EU before the deal was voted on by the European parliament. Keir Starmer punched the air in triumph. The government had been ground into the dust and he was now officially the face of effective opposition. “This is a major and welcome concession,” he said with as much gravitas as he could muster. Only then did the shadow Brexit secretary notice the look of surprise on Jones’s face. Starmer is a lovely, decent man but he’s not necessarily the lawyer you’d want fighting your cause. “Let me be clear,” said Jones. “We’re calling it a concession because we need to be seen to be making a concession. But to avoid any confusion, this concession is most definitely not a concession.” What it was, was a meaningless diversion to allow some of the Tory remainers to feel a bit better about themselves when they voted with the government later in the afternoon. “So this isn’t a concession, is it?” asked Ken Clarke. Jones smiled wanly. He didn’t know how to put this any plainer. All that was on offer was a vote on a deal or no deal. With just a couple of minutes to debate it. Just as Theresa May had promised in her Lancaster House speech. Parliament could either accept whatever bad deal the government managed to negotiate with the EU or it could jump off a cliff by going straight to World Trade Organisation rules. “But for a vote to be meaningful,” Labour’s Chuka Umunna pointed out, “parliament must be able to send the government back to the EU to renegotiate”. A howl escaped Jones’s lips. That was precisely why there wasn’t going to be a meaningful vote. How many more times did he have to repeat himself? If he had made a concession, and Jones was certain he hadn’t, then it had been to allow a meaningless meaningful vote. A vote whose only meaning was in its absence of meaning. It took the SNP’s Alex Salmond to get the message. “A Hobson’s choice is not a choice at all,” he said. “Surely it makes sense to know your destination before invoking article 50.” Choosing to trigger article 50 before the end of March was a totally arbitrary deadline and if the government was serious about this announcement then it would have included it as an amendment in the bill rather than just casually bring it up in conversation. “Finally,” Jones muttered under his breath. If the government’s non-concessionary concession wasn’t cutting much ice with anyone on the opposition benches – other than Starmer, who was still declaring Labour had won a significant victory – it was having the desired effect on possible Tory rebels. “I believe a significant concession has been offered,” announced Dominic Grieve, the former attorney-general and normally one of the brighter minds on the Conservative benches, “so I now feel comfortable voting with the government.” Labour’s Angela Smith interrupted Grieve to let him know that the government had just given a briefing in which it had been made clear there were no concessions whatsoever. Grieve was not to be thrown off track and insisted the government didn’t know what it was talking about; even if it couldn’t see it had made a concession then he could. Nicky Morgan tweeted her enthusiasm for the “big concessions” – a sure sign that she was having second thoughts and was planning to abstain. Only Anna Soubry openly declared her willingness to vote for Chris Leslie’s amendment for a properly meaningful vote. But it wasn’t enough. The government was home and dry. One by one the Tory snowflakes had melted away until just seven rebels remained. The party that had taken us into Europe and had campaigned for us to stay in it during the referendum was about to take us out. A hard Brexit was a-gonna fall. |