Will Brexit tear the Tory party into shreds?
TORY MPs are wondering this weekend whether their party is on the brink of an existential crisis after a tumultuous few days at Westminster. Theresa May’s deal with Brussels has turned the rift within Conservative ranks over Brexit into a chasm. Some are beginning to fear the party will be torn apart and all but destroyed at the next general election.
When the Prime Minister once identified Robert Peel as her political hero, she almost certainly had in mind the 19th-century statesman’s pioneering achievements in reforming the police and criminal justice system. Yet now some MPs fret that she is on course to repeat the shattering of the Tory party for a generation that his repeal of the Corn Laws sparked.
Mrs May’s fiercest Tory critics are convinced the deal will bring down the Prime Minister. “This is the longest suicide note in political history,” said one senior MP about the 585-page withdrawal agreement struck between the UK and EU negotiators this week. “That used to be said about the Left-wing Labour manifesto at the 1983 general election. But the PM’s deal is far longer – and far worse for the country’s future.”
Tory Brexiteers accuse the Prime Minister of welching on pledges made about quitting the EU’s customs union and jurisdiction of the bloc’s Court of Justice. “There has been deceit here and that is unforgiveable,” the senior MP added. “It is the deceit that will do for the PM.”
AND the biggest concern among Tory opponents of the deal is that the clauses covering the so-called Northern Ireland “backstop” and the Brexit transition period are potentially open ended. The former has no mechanism for the UK to unilaterally withdraw from fall-back customs ties designed to ensure an open border with the Irish Republic while the latter can be extended into the distant future. “What this means is that Parliament and the country will still be wrangling about our relationship with the EU by the time the next election is due in 2022,” another Tory Eurosceptic told me. His concern was that the electorate will mercilessly punish the Tories if Brexit remains in chaos and the country is still tied to Brussels by the time of the poll.
“We had thought this whole mess would be sorted by the end of the transition out of the EU in 2020. This deal will make Brexit the key issue of the next election and, if that happens, we will be obliterated. We would have failed to have delivered our promise to get Britain out of the single market and the customs union and voters will not forgive us.”
It is these details that have transformed the Brexit row from a spat about policy into a leadership crisis. MPs who were reluctantly prepared to put up with Mrs May in Downing Street to get the Government through Brexit next March now believe leaving her in place leaves the Tories facing eternal war over Europe.
FOR all the bellicose threats, Mrs May’s allies are relieved that she appears to have weathered the initial hurricane in the wake of the deal with her usual resilience. Some Cabinet resignations at this stage had long been expected within Downing Street and the fact that the majority of Brexitbacking ministers have stayed put is seen as a success. The Prime Minister also appears to be blessed by the disorganisation of her foes given the stuttering progress of the attempt to trigger a vote of no-confidence in her leadership.
Yet the prospects of Parliament backing her deal remain bleak. The Prime Minister’s team had hoped that sheer fatigue with the Brexit process would convince the majority of Tory and a significant number of Labour MPs to back the package simply to get the tedious business over with. Mrs May’s isolation in the Commons on Thursday told a different story. At Westminster, fear is growing that her deal will prolong and not curtail the Brexit agony.