We are set for a fascinating parliamentary showdown next month. Over five days in December, the withdrawal agreement will be debated and voted on by 640 or so MPs. On the surface the meaningful vote will be on whether to accept the deal or crash out without one. Unless something completely unforeseen arises between now and the debate, it looks certain to end in defeat for the prime minister and probably the end of her premiership.
In a Guardian editorial yesterday (HERE)
the writer declares the Brexit fantasy to be finished, that the Johnsonian
have-cake-and-eat-it philosophy has been shown, after nearly eighteen months of hard negotiation, to be what it always
was, an impossible make believe delusion that only the fat fraud of the
Remove could have thought possible. I think that must be clear to everybody.
Each side of the debate is now gearing up. Brexiteers say they plan to vote against the deal and push for the economic suicide of a no-deal exit which they think is a price worth paying to escape what they see as the malign influence of Brussels. Some of them, I think, are gambling that the negotiation would be re-opened with Brussels taking a much more accommodating position. But the Guardian has an article (HERE) quoting several EU leaders and diplomats that the deal as written cannot be renegotiated in any important way. It is a take-it-or-leave it deal so any idea of going to Brussels and demanding significant changes can be forgotten. It effectively closes one option down.
As I posted yesterday (HERE) the great legal wheel is also slowly turning on the Article 50 challenge with the government worried enough to be appealing to the Supreme Court next week. If their appeal is dismissed the ECJ on 27th November will make a ruling to determine if Article 50 can be unilaterally revoked. If upheld, it would perhaps open up an option for pro-remain MPs.
If I take it as beyond argument that the deal will not survive the commons, there are only two possible options. Leaving with no deal is the unthinkable default - and the potential impacts in dozens of areas, where the government is completely unprepared, must be etched into Mrs May's brain. She and many others both in and out of the cabinet will be all too well aware of the damage that will be done to our national standing and well-being - not to mention the Tory party. They would be out of office for a generation - and sober minds inside the party know it, even if their supporters do not. The idea is quite unconscionable. Parliament will not permit it to happen.
The ONLY other option is no-brexit. If the negotiated deal is lost, and in spite of everything the prime minister has said, all the promises and commitments both public and private that no deal is better than a bad one, and which Brexiteers believed were bankable, she will not allow the nation to exit without a deal. She will betray them and not the nation. Witness this exchange with Bill Cash on Thursday in the Withdrawal Agreement debate (HERE Col 442):
"These 585 pages are a testament to broken promises, failed negotiations and abject capitulation to the EU. Does my right hon. Friend understand that they represent a list of failures—on Northern Ireland, on ECJ issues, on indefinite extension of time, on customs, on full independence of trade and of fisheries and, above all, on our truly leaving the EU, because it will control our laws? Furthermore, there have been some very serious breaches of ministerial responsibilities, the ministerial code and collective responsibility".
The Prime Minister
[...] As Prime Minister and as a Government, it is our duty to ensure that we
put together a deal that not only respects the vote of the British
people—it does, in the ways that I have said, and it also ends free
movement—but does so in a way that protects jobs. That is why I believe
it is important not only that we take back control in the areas
mentioned, but that we maintain a good trading relationship with the
European Union, as well as having good trading relationships elsewhere.
That is in our economic interest and in our national interest, and that
is what we will deliver.
The old imbecile Cash, makes very serious charges against the PM, but she defends herself by referring to her "duty" being to "protect jobs" and "maintain a good trading relationship" with the EU.
If parliament decides to reject her deal, does anyone seriously expect us to believe she will meekly accept the default position, begin planning for no deal and plunge the country into three months of chaos? It would be a remarkable end to her political life and make Cameron's cowardly exit look like the action of a statesman.
The government and the Bank of England will have to be prepared if the vote goes against them. The shock waves would hit markets and sterling would be extremely vulnerable in the hours following the vote, so they will have a contingency plan to announce immediately - and it will NOT be to leave without a deal. This would only make the markets even more nervous and unstable. Don't waste a second worrying about it because it will never happen.
Both sides are gambling that, if they vote the deal down they will achieve their own diametrically opposed objectives. But I think remainers, in those circumstances, would have reason to be much more confident that the government would be forced to confront an unavoidable economic reality brought about by industry and the money markets. The Brexit fantasy would then truly be finished.
Update: I note some commentators believe the commons, assuming they reject the PM's deal, would be asked to vote again, assuming they have by then seen the mayhem in the markets. This is what happened in the USA on the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) in 2008 after the financial crash. I imagine this would be the government's preferred outcome, but I'm not convinced it would be successful. But it is an option.
Update: I note some commentators believe the commons, assuming they reject the PM's deal, would be asked to vote again, assuming they have by then seen the mayhem in the markets. This is what happened in the USA on the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) in 2008 after the financial crash. I imagine this would be the government's preferred outcome, but I'm not convinced it would be successful. But it is an option.
