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| Has the time come for remainers to compromise? | Has the time come for remainers to compromise? |
| (about 1 month later) | |
| For politicians, compromise can be a surprisingly hard word. So it is today over the Brexit endgame. The talk is still of crashing out, no deals and blood red lines. But this is paradoxical. Politics, like life itself, is mostly built on compromises. That is why the Brexit sherpas are, in fact, still talking in Brussels and London. Even on Brexit, it remains likelier than not that the practical human instinct to compromise will eventually have its way. | For politicians, compromise can be a surprisingly hard word. So it is today over the Brexit endgame. The talk is still of crashing out, no deals and blood red lines. But this is paradoxical. Politics, like life itself, is mostly built on compromises. That is why the Brexit sherpas are, in fact, still talking in Brussels and London. Even on Brexit, it remains likelier than not that the practical human instinct to compromise will eventually have its way. |
| This is not, though, the certainty it ought logically to be. Brexit is not simply another political process to be settled through compromise. To many, it is also a series of absolutes. One is that Britain’s vote to leave the European Union was not just decisive but the immutable will of an entire people that cannot be questioned – or compromised. A second, never properly understood in Westminster, is that the EU sees leaving as a treaty process governed by rules that cannot be bent. | This is not, though, the certainty it ought logically to be. Brexit is not simply another political process to be settled through compromise. To many, it is also a series of absolutes. One is that Britain’s vote to leave the European Union was not just decisive but the immutable will of an entire people that cannot be questioned – or compromised. A second, never properly understood in Westminster, is that the EU sees leaving as a treaty process governed by rules that cannot be bent. |
| Yet, as the writer Fintan O’Toole argued in a lecture this week, Brexit is not in practice monolithic. Indeed, Brexit metamorphosed at the precise moment that the leave vote was declared in 2016. With that declaration, Brexit moved from being a reactionary vision of restored British national destiny to being a practical and complicated task for politicians to sort out. | Yet, as the writer Fintan O’Toole argued in a lecture this week, Brexit is not in practice monolithic. Indeed, Brexit metamorphosed at the precise moment that the leave vote was declared in 2016. With that declaration, Brexit moved from being a reactionary vision of restored British national destiny to being a practical and complicated task for politicians to sort out. |
| It is a major part of Theresa May's failure that she has never properly embraced the role of tribune of the pragmatists | It is a major part of Theresa May's failure that she has never properly embraced the role of tribune of the pragmatists |
| More than two years on, it still is. For the fanatical leavers, Brexit remains what O’Toole calls an epic dream. That is one reason why people such as Boris Johnson refuse to accept ownership of the Brexit detail. For passionate remainers, it is the exact opposite, an epic nightmare against which only a second referendum, negating the collective national sin of the first, will suffice. Somewhere in the middle, however, stretching from deep inside the leave vote across the Brexit divide to somewhere well into remain, there are the many who now simply want a compromise they can live with. | More than two years on, it still is. For the fanatical leavers, Brexit remains what O’Toole calls an epic dream. That is one reason why people such as Boris Johnson refuse to accept ownership of the Brexit detail. For passionate remainers, it is the exact opposite, an epic nightmare against which only a second referendum, negating the collective national sin of the first, will suffice. Somewhere in the middle, however, stretching from deep inside the leave vote across the Brexit divide to somewhere well into remain, there are the many who now simply want a compromise they can live with. |
| Theresa May is the flawed and awkward tribune of these pragmatists. It is a major part of her failure that she has never properly embraced this inescapable role. After 2016, she could and should have reached out to remainers by pledging to secure as moderate a Brexit as possible. Instead, she threw in her lot with the fundamentalist leavers in speeches to the 2016 Tory conference and at Lancaster House. This led remainers – and, just as important, the EU27 – to conclude that she wanted nothing more than a vestigial free trade deal and a minimum of regulatory cooperation. | Theresa May is the flawed and awkward tribune of these pragmatists. It is a major part of her failure that she has never properly embraced this inescapable role. After 2016, she could and should have reached out to remainers by pledging to secure as moderate a Brexit as possible. Instead, she threw in her lot with the fundamentalist leavers in speeches to the 2016 Tory conference and at Lancaster House. This led remainers – and, just as important, the EU27 – to conclude that she wanted nothing more than a vestigial free trade deal and a minimum of regulatory cooperation. |
| Since her failed general election, and in a characteristically last-minute, crabwise manner, May has sometimes crept towards a more centrist position. But she has done it in the least politically intelligent way possible. Instead of trying to use Brexit to reimagine modern Britain in a fairer way, as, at his best, her former adviser Nick Timothy urged her to do, she used it to indulge post-imperial fantasists on the right of the Tory party and the press, and to embrace forms of Ulster unionism that are rooted in the 1920s not the 2020s. | Since her failed general election, and in a characteristically last-minute, crabwise manner, May has sometimes crept towards a more centrist position. But she has done it in the least politically intelligent way possible. Instead of trying to use Brexit to reimagine modern Britain in a fairer way, as, at his best, her former adviser Nick Timothy urged her to do, she used it to indulge post-imperial fantasists on the right of the Tory party and the press, and to embrace forms of Ulster unionism that are rooted in the 1920s not the 2020s. |
| May should have embraced some of the language and ideas of “soft” Brexit from the start. By doing so, especially after her June 2017 election catastrophe,she could have laid the ground for the necessary later cross-party understandings on the Brexit deal. She could, in particular, have tried to win round the SNP by pledging to devolve EU competences to Holyrood. And she could have tried to reach agreements with Labour on the customs union, Northern Ireland and employment rules. Instead, she allowed herself to become the hostage of incompetent and lazy rightwingers in her own party and the puppet of a sectarian DUP. | May should have embraced some of the language and ideas of “soft” Brexit from the start. By doing so, especially after her June 2017 election catastrophe,she could have laid the ground for the necessary later cross-party understandings on the Brexit deal. She could, in particular, have tried to win round the SNP by pledging to devolve EU competences to Holyrood. And she could have tried to reach agreements with Labour on the customs union, Northern Ireland and employment rules. Instead, she allowed herself to become the hostage of incompetent and lazy rightwingers in her own party and the puppet of a sectarian DUP. |
| Now, however, the Brexit process is approaching the crunch. Or rather, two umbilically-connected crunches. Crunch one will be over an agreement with the EU. Because the EU, not Britain, holds most of the cards, this agreement will either be softer than Chequers, in which case the Tory right will reject it, or harder, in which case the left will say no. It will not be the cherry-picking, bespoke deal May has promoted for the last two years. | Now, however, the Brexit process is approaching the crunch. Or rather, two umbilically-connected crunches. Crunch one will be over an agreement with the EU. Because the EU, not Britain, holds most of the cards, this agreement will either be softer than Chequers, in which case the Tory right will reject it, or harder, in which case the left will say no. It will not be the cherry-picking, bespoke deal May has promoted for the last two years. |
| Crunch two will be getting the deal through parliament. This cannot be done by relying on Conservatives alone, since there is no Tory majority and because a significant minority of Tory MPs will oppose the deal, whatever form it takes. Even if the DUP backs May, the chances are that she will need opposition support. That is why she should have opened out to Labour, the SNP and the Liberal Democrats during the past year. And why she still should. | Crunch two will be getting the deal through parliament. This cannot be done by relying on Conservatives alone, since there is no Tory majority and because a significant minority of Tory MPs will oppose the deal, whatever form it takes. Even if the DUP backs May, the chances are that she will need opposition support. That is why she should have opened out to Labour, the SNP and the Liberal Democrats during the past year. And why she still should. |
| Another report on a no-deal Brexit; another excuse to ignore the damage | Anand Menon and Jonathan Portes | Another report on a no-deal Brexit; another excuse to ignore the damage | Anand Menon and Jonathan Portes |
| Most of the media attention about the parliamentary arithmetic has focused so far on how Tory backbenchers will vote. Yet, when and if this second crunch point is reached, pro-Europeans on the opposition benches will face a crucial dilemma too. Do they vote for May’s deal in order to avoid no deal? Or do they vote with Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson to crash out? There will be immense party pressure on these MPs to vote down May’s deal. But there will be significant public pressure in the other direction too, demanding that opposition MPs give May’s deal a chance, avert a cliff-edge crash, and allow the country the opportunity to move beyond Brexit. | Most of the media attention about the parliamentary arithmetic has focused so far on how Tory backbenchers will vote. Yet, when and if this second crunch point is reached, pro-Europeans on the opposition benches will face a crucial dilemma too. Do they vote for May’s deal in order to avoid no deal? Or do they vote with Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson to crash out? There will be immense party pressure on these MPs to vote down May’s deal. But there will be significant public pressure in the other direction too, demanding that opposition MPs give May’s deal a chance, avert a cliff-edge crash, and allow the country the opportunity to move beyond Brexit. |
| The power of this dilemma will clearly depend on the content of the deal itself. For many remainers, voting for any form of Brexit will be a step too far in any circumstances. For more pragmatic remainers, though, the temptation to back a deal, depending on the softness of its content and the degree of compromise made by May, and which has also been agreed by the EU27, will be a serious option. Faced with a choice between an imperfect deal that retained significant connections to Europe, and no deal with Europe at all, many pro-Europeans may decide it is time for them to compromise too, because, like it or not, they have a dog in this fight. | The power of this dilemma will clearly depend on the content of the deal itself. For many remainers, voting for any form of Brexit will be a step too far in any circumstances. For more pragmatic remainers, though, the temptation to back a deal, depending on the softness of its content and the degree of compromise made by May, and which has also been agreed by the EU27, will be a serious option. Faced with a choice between an imperfect deal that retained significant connections to Europe, and no deal with Europe at all, many pro-Europeans may decide it is time for them to compromise too, because, like it or not, they have a dog in this fight. |
| • Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist | • Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist |
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