The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Let’s move in same direction
The unseemly squabble last week among the Tory old guard provided a moment of high drama but also light relief in the bitter Brexit battle. Michael Heseltine – the arch-Euro champion of the last century – locked horns with ancient foes such as Norman Tebbit, Norman Lamont and John Redwood after suggesting that a Jeremy Corbyn government would be less damaging to Britain than Brexit.
The Eurosceptics immediately demanded that the Conservative whip be withdrawn from Lord Heseltine and condemned, laughably, his “sniping from inside the tent”.
It was all so much more entertaining than the usual dreary festive fare on television, but this particular political pantomime will have sent a few shivers down the spine of Theresa May.
As she will remember well, a predecessor lost her job over Europe and the party was eventually cast into the wilderness. Then, it was a moderate Labour Party that governed Britain but now it would be militant Corbynism and we have much more to fear.
Mr Heseltine, typically provocative, went too far but he arguably represents a growing majority who are in favour of a softer Brexit. While the Tories were bickering, calls came for a cross-party alliance to campaign for a single market and customs union when Britain leaves the EU.
This was a sensible move but unfortunately emanated from a silly corner of the Commons – the SNP benches where, as everyone knows, the issue of Europe is merely a means to an end: Scottish independence.
Ian Blackford, the Nationalists’ leader at Westminster, invited party bosses, including Jeremy Corbyn and the Lib Dems’ Vince Cable, to a summit on January 8 to ward off a “catastrophic” hard Brexit.
As this year begins, the focus should not be on trying to reverse the Brexit vote of 2016, as Mr Heseltine would like, but to find a solution that causes the least possible disruption.
The Prime Minister has already ruled out remaining in the single market and the customs union, but there are signs that she is weaning herself off the hard Brexiteers and seeking out the middle ground.
The Times reported last week that the EU minister and vociferous Leaver David Davis had been sidelined in Brussels talks, with his role of chief negotiator being assumed by one of his former officials.
The official in question, Oliver Robbins, is apparently now running discussions with the EU’s lead negotiator, Michel Barnier. Figures reportedly show that between July and September, Davis visited Brussels for four days, while Robbins was there for 18 days. It is Mr Robbins, in fact, who is credited with the agreement in December on citizens’ rights and the divorce settlement.
Some will be cheered by the fact that it is not Mrs May herself dealing with the details, but Mr Robbins moved from Mr Davis’s Department for Exiting the European Union to head up a new European unit in the Cabinet Office and he answers directly to the PM. This will give the impression that she, and not a fractious party faction, is in charge, thus strengthening her hand in Brussels.
But if the politics are at one remove and the terms of our separation from Europe all come down to a clever civil servant, so much the better.
This month the talks enter a new phase that will ultimately determine the future trading and political bonds with our European neighbours.
The deliberations will include plans for a free trade deal on a sector by sector basis; this would establish maximum access – for instance, in the pharmaceutical industry – to each other’s markets in return for not breaching common regulatory standards. Meetings are also due to start between British and French MPs over safeguarding the vitally important Channel infrastructure.
Jean-Paul Mulot, the regional envoy to the UK for Hauts-de-France, which includes Calais, Boulogne, Dunkirk and the Channel Tunnel entrance, said his region wants British business to thrive and the “close and mutually beneficial relationship” to survive post-Brexit.
This surely should be the overriding goal of 2018 – to put petty, partisan differences aside and proceed constructively for the benefit of all. It is crucial that Mrs May rises above her manoeuvring ministers, and makes this new year one of accord.