Crunch time in the Commons
MPS ARE playing a new “think of a number” guessing game this weekend. Ahead of the five-day Commons debate about Theresa May’s Brexit deal starting on Tuesday, the challenge has gone beyond attempting to predict the margin of victory or defeat in the final vote. The focus now is on just how big a hammering the Prime Minister can sustain without being forced out of her job.
On current standing, Mrs May is heading for a defeat by well over 100 votes in the division on a motion backing her deal with Brussels on the evening of December 11. A setback of that scale on the Government’s flagship policy would be devastating for her authority, many Tories believe.
MPs wonder what “Plan B” strategy has been drawn up in Downing Street to respond to the anticipated humiliation in the division lobbies. Many at Westminster expect the Prime Minister to battle doggedly on as she has done throughout her strife-ridden premiership.
“She is so obstinate I don’t think a defeat of any scale would force her to change course,” said an MP in the Democratic Unionist Party, which is close to breaking off its parliamentary alliance with the Tories. Being branded “obstinate” by the “no surrender” DUP is quite an achievement for any politician.
Yet even Mrs May’s rock-solid intransigence would be in danger of being shattered if the defeat is so large that a second vote looked impossible to win. While Jacob Rees-Mogg’s Brexiteer gang in the European Research Group failed in their attempt to topple the Prime Minister last month, new efforts to gather the 48 backbench signatures needed to trigger a vote of no-confidence in her leadership of the party are already being prepared. One senior Tory backbencher was telling colleagues this week that more than 20 MPs from the pro-Brussels wing of the party will send letters demanding a confidence vote the day after the expected defeat on the Brexit motion.
GIVEN the numbers stacked up against the deal, some MPs suspect the Prime Minister may be readying herself for the fresh EU referendum she has repeatedly ruled out. They see her national tour to trumpet her deal last week and the planned television head-to-head clash with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as discreet first moves in that referendum campaign. Mrs May must have considered the wily strategy of one of her predecessors, Harold Wilson, in muddling through and papering over the cracks of a party at war over European policy.
His solution was to renegotiate with the then European Community and put the resulting deal to a national poll.
Some MPs ask whether a referendum question asking voters a straight “yes” or “no” about whether to endorse her deal may be on the way, with the Prime Minister banking on public fatigue with the Brexit debate to see her through. It would be a choice that would disappoint the Remain campaigners demanding a “People’s Vote” as the option of staying in the EU would not be on the ballot paper.
Such a strategy would be a huge risk, particularly for a Tory leader exposed as an ineffective campaigner in the run-up to the 2017 general election.
Mrs May would also have to seek a suspension of the EU’s Article 50 departure process, delaying the UK’s exit from the EU, to allow time for a national poll.
Mrs May’s aides refuse to discuss any of the options for responding to a Commons defeat on her deal with anyone beyond her inner circle, insisting the only alternative to backing her deal is chaos.
Any hint that the Prime Minister has a plan of what to do after losing a vote would only make the reverse more likely by suggesting even she has given up on winning.
However, while refusing to talk about “Plan B” might be tactically astute, not having one secretly lined up would be negligent to the point of foolishness given the way the numbers game is stacking up.
CAMPAIGNERS from Brexit-backing pressure group Leave Means Leave invaded the green opposite Parliament usually occupied by flag-waving anti-Brexit protesters for a demo this week. “There wasn’t any trouble,” said a Leave Means Leave source. “That lot don’t get up very early in the day.”