A divide over Brexit may cost the Tories

The Archbishop of Canterbury has called for a “ceasefire from insult” in British politics in order to make a success of leaving the European Union. Justin Welby is right to be concerned about the legacy of Brexit, whose capacity to divide parties and country continues more than 18 months after the referendum.

On Wednesday night, the Government suffered its first defeat on the Bill to take Britain out of the EU after a debate marked by acrimonious exchanges among Conservatives. A dozen or so rebel MPS were accused of sending Theresa May off to a Brussels summit with her authority dented (though as she rightly pointed out on arriving in the Belgian capital, there have been 36 votes and she has won 35 of them). The rebels, in turn, said Brexiters appeared happy to let the executive ride roughshod over the rights of Parliament to determine the final outcome of this story.

What was most apparent during the debate was the breakdown of trust between the rebels and the Government, which does not bode well for another big vote in the Commons next week over plans to insert the March 2019 departure date into the legislation. It is likely that ministers will now drop this idea since a second defeat must be avoided, as the first might have been if handled better. But the Conservatives should resist taking action against the rebels, such as threatening deselection, which would simply deepen the existing acrimony.

Part of the difficulty is that Theresa May has yet to set out specifically the sort of deal that she will seek in the second round of talks. Given the divisions in the party, that is hardly surprising but it does need to be resolved soon by the Cabinet, which is due to hold that discussion next week.

There is also a suspicion among Brexiters that the rebels have a hidden agenda, which is to leave open the option of the UK staying in the EU if the Government cannot get a deal acceptable to Parliament. They reject this emphatically but they still need to demonstrate more than just grudging acceptance of Brexit, and to cooperate in bringing it about rather than placing obstacles in its way.

The Tories have been torn apart by Europe for more than a quarter of a century. The last great schism in the 1990s contributed if not to Tony Blair’s victory then certainly to its scale. The party must beware letting its current divisions pave the way for another Labour government, this time of the far-left variety. Were that catastrophe to happen, the type of Brexit we get will be irrelevant.