The danger for Theresa May is not from Brexiteers but from Labour
Jeremy Corbyn could bring down the PM by pledging to keep Britain inside the customs union
An email dropped into our household in-box the other day. It was from Chuka Umunna, the Labour MP, and he was asking for money. Not from me, but from my wife, a Remain voter who has signed up to receive regular missives from the Open Britain organisation. Mr Umunna now heads an amalgamation of cross-party anti-brexit groups that have come together to “call for the public’s voice to be heard”. To that end he was seeking cash to bolster their campaign.
Oddly enough, I cannot recall many of these people calling for the public’s voice to be heard on whether we should stay in or leave the EU in the first place. I suspect most were unhappy with David Cameron’s decision to hold the referendum, though Mr Umunna did vote for the 2015 Act, as did Anna Soubry, the former Conservative Cabinet minister who supports Open Britain.
Mr Umunna states in his email: “What everybody in the wider pro-european community wants is for the people to have their say on Brexit, which is exactly what the Brextremists don’t want to happen.” Presumably these Brextremists include Jeremy Corbyn, who has ruled out holding a second referendum. Those calling for another vote should pause to consider what that involves. The legislation would be the most divisive ever put to Parliament: just agreeing on the question would be almost impossible.
In any case, isn’t it in Parliament – and subsequently at the ballot box – that “the people will have their say”? Indeed, I had thought that these very campaigners wanted the final decision to be taken by MPS. After all, that was the reason they backed Gina Miller’s gutsy appeal to the courts to ensure Brexit was not a matter solely to be determined by the executive. Why, now, this sudden distrust of Parliament?
My view is that we should have joined the European Free Trade Association soon after the Brexit vote. Had we done so, we would not be where we now are, and there are treacherous political waters for Theresa May to negotiate. Yet despite all the brouhaha of recent days the biggest danger to her premiership comes not from her own MPS but from Labour.
This week’s “shock” announcement from Number 10 that the UK would not be staying in the EU customs union was not a “sop to Brexiteers” but a reiteration of a policy that had been spelt out on many occasions. Mrs May said it in her Lancaster House speech a year ago and has repeated it on many occasions since.
More to the point, it is there in black and white on page 36 of last June’s Conservative election manifesto – not exactly the party’s finest hour but the platform on which its MPS were elected. “We will no longer be members of the single market or the customs union but we will seek a deep and special partnership including a comprehensive free trade and customs agreement.”
In the Commons last month Mrs May said: “Leaving the European Union means that we will be leaving the single market. We will no longer be members of the single market or the customs union.” So no great surprise. Indeed, the Cabinet subcommittee, which meets today and tomorrow to thrash out a posttransition Brexit policy, needs only to stick to what it has already agreed to avoid bloodshed.
The big surprise would be if the inner core of ministers changed tack at this stage. The policy has not been foisted on a reluctant Prime Minister by a handful of hard-line Brexiters who should be ejected from the party, as Miss Soubry told Newsnight on Monday. Mrs May has championed it from the outset and was elected on that basis.
However, this is not just about the Conservatives. When a government has no majority, the votes of the opposition become critical to getting business through the Commons. Just as important, then – more so, perhaps – is what is going on inside the Labour Party. Its manifesto talked of “retaining the benefits of the single market and the customs union”, which is pretty much what the Government wants without being specific, allowing the luxury of ambiguity.
On that basis, Labour would support a soft Brexit negotiated by Mrs May, which involves a close “arrangement” with the EU but not membership of the customs union or the single market. But what if that changes? Labour’s top team is also to discuss its Brexit policy amid signs that Messrs Corbyn and Mcdonnell will commit to staying in the customs union.
If they do, then the vote in the autumn on the final deal becomes a moment of great danger for the Government, especially as it will be tied up with the question of the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. In such circumstances, relying on the votes of the DUP may prove problematic.
True, Mr Corbyn is a long-standing Bennite Eurosceptic who will be reluctant to agree any future relationship with the EU that will make it harder to build the socialist Utopia in Britain. But his activist support is predominantly pro-eu; and if the Tories are vulnerable to a vote on staying in the customs union he may put his principles aside in order to bring the Government down.
Much depends on what the EU is prepared to offer by way of a bespoke, “frictionless” trading arrangement. If Britain can get a “cake-and-eat-it” deal then Mrs May should get that through Parliament. If not, Labour’s aim is to manoeuvre her into a position where she could lose a key vote and be forced from office. Something similar happened in 1993 when John Major was defeated over Maastricht by a combination of Labour and Eurosceptic rebels and only survived by winning on a motion of confidence the following day.
The Commons vote before Christmas showed there are enough Conservative backbenchers to defeat the Government; and there is simply no majority in Parliament for a hard Brexit, whatever Jacob Rees-mogg and others might prefer. The deliberations of the Cabinet’s Brexit committee over the next two days will be watched for signs of a bloodbath, but I suspect they will be more harmonious than many anticipate. In the end, it is how Labour MPS vote this coming autumn that could determine Mrs May’s fate.