Brexit puts May survival in doubt

Of all the problems Britain has created for itself with Brexit, the Irish border is probably the most difficult for Theresa May’s Government. If Britain makes a clean break with the European Union, as desired by the likes of Boris Johnson who resigned as her Foreign Secretary yesterday, customs posts will have to be stationed on the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, an EU member state. Commerce naturally crosses that border constantly. Neither side wants customs duties dividing them again, and nobody in the British mainland who remembers the long Irish conflict wants to see divisive influences return.

The May Government has to solve this problem because the Conservative Party lost its majority at the snap election May called last year and her Government survives on the support of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party. The DUP wants to retain open borders with both the republic and the rest of the United Kingdom. In fact it has threatened to bring down the Government if the province was treated differently from the rest of the UK in any Brexit arrangement.

The Prime Minister’s solution to this and many other problems posed by a clean break with Europe was put to her Cabinet at an all day meeting at Chequers last Friday local time. A majority supported her proposal to ask the EU for a “common rule book” on standards for food and goods in return for greater divergence on regulation of services and digital products. Shared product standards is one way to ease trade across border but it appears to fall short of remaining in a “customs union” with the EU.

Nevertheless, May’s proposal has been too much for hard line Brexiteers Johnson and David Davis, her chief negotiating minister with the EU. They might not be the last to go and the Prime Minister’s political survival is in doubt. She is caught between those in her party who will allow no compromise on the result of the referendum two years ago and EU officials who show no inclination to help her resolve the problems Britain has made for itself. There is no certainty that May’s common rule book proposal would find any interest in Brussels, which continues to insist Britain cannot “cherry pick” the elements of economic unity that suit it.

With just nine months to go on Britain’s notice that it is leaving, and just a few months left to have terms agreed in time for a vote of all members, no deal seems possible. Unless there is a change of government.

If May resigns and the Conservatives remain too divided on this issue to unite behind a new leader, another general election will be needed. Almost certainly it would result in a Labour Government more capable of coming to terms with the EU. Labour’s leader Jeremy Corbyn might be a lukewarm European but the party’s MPs were solid “remainers” at the referendum. A Labour Government might yet be able to negotiate a new economic relationship. Theresa May’s party clearly remains too deeply divided to do any sort of deal and its days look numbered.