Why I’m convinced a Brexit deal is about to be sealed with a kiss
NEXT week, Theresa May travels to Salzburg, the Austrian city known for being the birthplace of Mozart and the setting for the film The Sound Of Music.
Although obviously the von Trapp family of the musical were in much greater peril as they fled from the Nazis, Mrs May, too, will feel harried and persecuted as she attends a summit of EU leaders.
Not only is she under siege from a rump of hard-line Tory Brexiteers, but she faces a hail of artillery from EU leaders who want to make Brexit as unpleasant an experience for Britain as possible.
These are uncertain times and Mrs May is unfortunate to find herself in the middle of a terrifying vortex.
At home, plotters are trying to force her out of No 10. They may yet succeed. But I am beginning to doubt it.
Indeed, I believe that Mrs May could be on the verge of securing the greatest triumph of her political career.
Although cynics predict that her visit to Salzburg on Wednesday will end in tears, I have spoken to well-informed sources close to the British and European sides of the Brexit negotiating teams and detect signs of a breakthrough. There’s a mood of optimism — of friendship even.
There’s a quiet, but growing, belief that the British Prime Minister is close to striking a remarkable deal. Of course, that won’t happen in Salzburg. There could well be a confected row between the 27 other EU leaders and Mrs May. That would be designed to give the impression that Brussels won’t be a pushover on Brexit.
HOWEVER,
no one can deny that the rudiments for a deal exist. And it’s one that would enable Britain to leave the EU on reasonable terms.
Let me explain how this has been achieved. Until recent weeks, our negotiators have been struggling against a Brussels bureaucracy fronted by intransigent chief negotiator Michel Barnier, supported by the clapped-out Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker.
Confronting them has been like negotiating with a wall of flint.
No wonder talks repeatedly foundered.
It didn’t help that Barnier’s relationship with David Davis, before he stood down as Brexit Secretary, was toxic.
For her part, Mrs May should be able to bypass the wretched Barnier and Juncker. She will deal directly with French leader Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Both of them are realists. Not only are they aware that it’s in their countries’ best interests not to treat Britain badly, but that Mrs May deserves decent terms for us departing the EU.
Merkel has been told forcefully by Germany’s manufacturers that it is vital for them not to face unnecessary hurdles selling products to their biggest market — Britain. If that means, for example, importing British-made Range Rovers and Nissans freely in exchange for exporting their own BMWs and Mercedes, so be it.
Of course Mrs May will come under intense pressure to water down her so- called Chequers proposals. EU negotiators will endeavour to force Britain to keep access to European markets on condition that we sign up to European single market rules and regulations. Britain will also be told to keep paying tens of billions of pounds into EU coffers.
But as far as Mrs May is concerned, some of these concessions would be worth it rather than risk Britain exiting with no deal.
ASUCCESSFUL outcome would be an unmitigated triumph for our embattled Prime Minister. It would also prove wrong all those who have likened her Chequers strategy to a dodo.
Barnier, Juncker, Jacob ReesMogg, Jeremy Corbyn, Tony Blair, Vince Cable and her detractors in the media would all have to eat humble pie.
Some, such as the most dyspeptic hard-line Tory Brexiteers, would, of course, refuse. They would unsheath daggers at next month’s Conservative Party conference and hurl shouts of ‘betrayal’.
But the truth is that such a Brexit deal with the EU would honour Mrs May’s promise to the British people that Brexit would mean a free trade area for goods; no more free movement of people across our border; leaving the Common Agricultural Policy; taking back control of UK waters by quitting the Common Fisheries Policy; supremacy for UK courts and an end to the jurisdiction of the European Courts of Justice.
This weekend, the Tory Brexit rebels are gravely weakened. The first sign of this emerged when their European Research Group ( ERG) faction failed to put forward cogent proposals for how Britain would survive outside the EU if Mrs May’s Chequers deal collapsed. Also, all the foment about a leadership challenge to Mrs May proved to be nothing but a mirage.
Furthermore, awkward questions are being asked about the funding of the ERG, with a possible investigation by parliamentary watchdogs into a secret bank account used to pay for wining and dining supporters.
While these high-stakes politics are being played out, it is vital to remember that the referendum ballot paper in June 2016 asked voters to make a simple choice: whether they wanted to remain in, or leave, the European Union.
There were no stated terms on which Britain might leave.
Considering the way politics has descended into the gutter during the 27 months since then, Theresa May has climbed bravely to near the pinnacle of the mountain.
How apposite that, next week, it will be beside the majestic Alps, in Salzburg, that she might start to believe that an honourable Brexit is finally within reach.