Why did the turkeys rush toward Christmas? Because they were following a headless chicken. No British prime minister since Anthony Eden’s nerves gave way after the Suez Crisis has shown the decapitated directional sense that Theresa May has shown as she staggers around the barnyard of Brexit. And no Cabinet since Suez has wobbled its wattles and puffed its feathers so self-destructively as May’s Cabinet, as it staggers after her toward a brutal stunning in the House of Commons, and thence into the electoral abattoir.
Wednesday was just another day on Animal Farm. On Tuesday, May had announced that she had secured a draft deal for Brexit from the European Union, and called an emergency Cabinet meeting for the following afternoon. Within minutes, members of her Cabinet were whispering against the plan, and a critical mass of Conservative Brexiteers were criticizing it loudly and massively. Even well-disposed observers were noting that the gaps in some areas of the “deal” were so wide that you could drive an EU-compliant bus through them.
Members of the Cabinet were shown the draft of the deal one by one in a secure room, as if the terms of Brexit were the code for a nuclear football or the 10 Downing Street Netflix account. Meanwhile, the British media described the deal in detail sufficient to explain why May and her advisers were being so furtive.
The deal is not a deal to settle future relations between Britain and the EU. It is the outline of a deal for Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union in March 2019, and a sketch of what might happen in the 21-month transition period that follows. And it is an unworkable and unethical disgrace.
The withdrawal deal would oblige Britain to sign up to 27 pages of “level playing field” commitments to the EU in return for no tariffs on goods. These commitments include staying in “dynamic alignment” with EU law on state aid, assenting to EU directives on tax reporting, and a promise not to regress from current EU social, environmental, and labor regulation.
The most difficult issue of all remains to be fudged. Northern Ireland is an integral part of the U.K., but it abuts the Republic of Ireland, which is an EU state. The EU, understandably, has used Northern Ireland as a wedge issue in negotiations. At first, the EU proposed splitting Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK, with a customs border running through the Irish Sea.
This assault on national sovereignty betrays the imperial presumption of the EU. That Theresa May appeared to accept it as the “backstop” in case of a no-deal outcome indicates how out of her depth she is. The EU has now grasped that no British prime minister can agree to break up the Union, on legal grounds if not electorally. So the new deal calls for a “joint customs territory” to include all of the U.K., Northern Ireland included, and the future development of “deep regulatory and customs cooperation”.
Vague as they are, these terms amount to an annulment of the Brexit referendum of 2016; of May’s promise to honor the public’s vote when she took over from David Cameron that year; of May’s reaffirmation in a speech in January 2017 at Lancaster House in London; and the Conservatives’ electoral pledges in the 2017 election.
Before the British voted to leave the EU in 2016, the Cameron government sent every household a leaflet explaining that Brexit meant leaving the EU’s customs union. The point of Brexit is to restore Britain’s parliamentary sovereignty. A “joint customs territory” is a euphemism for a customs union. The “level playing field” and the commitment to “dynamic alignment” and “regulatory cooperation” are flannel for the open-ended subordination of the British parliament to the Brussels bureaucracy.
Worse, the deal includes no workable exit if no final deal is reached, or if the British public finds that “dynamic alignment” is a pipeline for funneling EU laws into British law.
It’s not just Brexiteers who are furious about this deal. Tony Blair has called it a “capitulation.” May proposes that Britain should remain inside the EU’s legislative net, even after it has forfeited its vote in the EU’s councils. She is offering the worst of both worlds, and calling it the best of all possible worlds.
Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting was booked for three hours, but took nearly five hours. Despite the tight security, witnesses appear to have slipped out reports of dissent while the shouting was still in progress. On talk radio, callers were calling the prime minister “Treason May.” Even May described the meeting as “impassioned,” which is English for a shouting match, when she reeled out to face the cameras and claim victory with “the best deal possible.”
All of May’s Pyrrhic victories turn into defeats. As many as 11 of 29 ministers are believed to have opposed elements of the deal, including the Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, and Home Secretary, Sajid Javid. Esther McVey, the Works and Pensions minister, called for a Cabinet vote on the plan, but was overruled.
“Looks like it’s going to the Commons,” a Westminster insider messaged me as the clock ticked on Wednesday afternoon. “It’s really tough. They’ll have to pass a motion first, and only then can they introduce the EU (Withdrawal Agreement ) Act.”
And that is why this turkey of a deal is a dead duck. The Unionists of Northern Ireland, the prop that saves May from minority government, are against it. Labour and the Liberal Democrats are against it. And too many Conservatives are against it too, even if they keep chickening out of confronting May.
On Thursday morning, Dominic Raab, the minister for Brexit, resigned. So did McVey and two other junior ministers. As May staggered through Question Time in the Commons, it was rumored that Jacob Rees-Mogg, leader of the pro-Brexit European Research Group (ERM), had filed a letter of no confidence. The ERM claims that more than 80 Conservatives would vote down May’s deal. She doesn’t have the numbers.
In a sense, May has done the pro-Brexit Conservatives a favor. For months, they have talked of stabbing her in the back, and now she has stabbed herself in the front. May intends to bring this deal to the Commons as early as December 10. Turkey will be talked, and a vote called.
In that vote, the Conservatives will either follow May and sink themselves for a generation, or they will split, and precipitate a leadership contest.
“Honestly, your guess is as good as mine,” my friend the insider texted me on Wednesday evening. So, to pick through the giblets for auguries of what will happen:
I expect more resignations in the coming days. May will try to wing it, because she is nothing if not dogged, but if she makes it to the Commons, she will get plucked and spatchcocked. That said, I wouldn’t put it past the Conservatives to flock and flap around her to the very last moment, because their fear of a leadership contest and a general election is greater than their commitment to honoring the Brexit referendum and their promises to the electorate. And the longer they do this, the more they forfeit the public’s trust, and bolster the appeal of Jeremy Corbyn.
The pound dived on Thursday morning along with the prospects for this deal. It’s now a game of chicken between the Remainers and the Brexiteers in the Conservative party. May has bungled the Brexit negotiations so badly that nothing less than the credibility of British democracy and the independence of the Mother of Parliaments is now at stake. And that’s no poultry matter.
