This broken Brexit is bordering on farcical
THERESA MAY’S big Brexit speech was a last-ditch attempt to appeal to the hardline Brexiteers and Remainers in her own party, as well as the Brussels negotiators, to make tough compromises so that trade talks can get under way. But for all her optimistic rhetoric and sugar-coating of sobering truths, her speech still failed to solve the central conundrum and the issue that concerns us most, about how the UK can strike trade agreements across the globe without a hard border around Northern Ireland.
Other than its shopping list of postBrexit arrangements for different industries, imperative to save the country from becoming an economic basket case, May was sufficiently vague to give both a crumb of comfort and a cause of unease to mutually-opposed factions.
If anything, the speech reminded us, as if we needed it, of the deplorable lack of thought behind the Brexit project and the scale of the mess that faces the British people whose economy is stagnating, as well as the potential damage to us who rely heavily on our nearest neighbour.
It also highlights the urgency of May’s position, with the clock ticking not just on the negotiations but also, in all likelihood, on her days in Downing Street.
Those who spearheaded Brexit, never considered how the Good Friday Agreement might scupper their making-Britaingreat-again fantasy. Hardline Eurosceptics may contend that EU negotiators are using the Irish border as a proxy for creating difficulties, but the truth is that were it not for their woeful ignorance about Ireland, allied to their monumental arrogance about their rightful place in the world, they would have foreseen that eventuality.
The irony is that Ireland, the historical enemy, the pygmy nation of its vast colonial empire, has become a main stumbling block to Brexit.
While Tony Blair was, from the beginning, an outspoken critic, terming Brexit a ‘mistake of destiny’, John Major has been circumspect. For that reason, his warning that May’s Government’s disregard for economic and diplomatic reality has set the country on the road to disaster has greater resonance.
As the clock ticks down on the March 29, 2019 departure date, May may be banking on Angela Merkel flexing her muscles and ordering Michel Barnier to agree to a bespoke arrangement between Britain and the EU.
But Merkel knows the history of British engagement in Europe – she knows that no amount of opt-outs or concessions will ever ultimately satisfy those Tories who are most hostile to the EU, and that, in any event, they would threaten EU unity and cohesion. Nothing less than an extreme Brexit will satisfy hardliners like Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson who bear the EU project nothing but ill will.
On her other side, May has rebels like Anna Soubry whose hand has been strengthened, now that Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn has voiced his support for some class of a customs union.
Remaining in the customs union would remove the need for a hard border and allow Britain to continue trading with the 27 member states, while outside the single market. The price of that arrangement – tying Britain’s hands when it comes to making international trade deals – is unacceptable to the Eurosceptics who pull Theresa May’s strings.
Crippled by her divided Government, May might have no option but to go to the queen seeking permission for an election, potentially propelling Corbyn to power.
An unreconstructed socialist in Downing Street, a politician who some say has not changed his mind on any policy since he was 15, hardly promises a steady hand on the tiller.
The alternative is that the Conservatives somehow hang together as a party and persist with the impossible dream. Either way, the prospects are terrifying.