Brexiteers think we can surrender now and rebel later. They’re wrong

We had an opportunity to wrest control from the EU but missed it. Now we face the worst outcome

Slowly but surely, the Brexiteer mood is softening. Six months too late, Brexit MPS are starting to understand the British surrender that began last December. But now, unlike then, they are weary and confused. They want done with it all. One, a usually pugnacious member of the European Reform Group, suggested to me recently that it would be best to say yes to the EU for now and then unwind the surrender later under a new prime minister.

This is a rather astonishing turn. Brexiteers are typically the first to argue that the EU ratchet never stops, it only pauses – and that’s why we have to leave. Yet now, they argue the opposite.

They are, in fact, making two crucial mistakes. First, they still – still! – haven’t realised the full extent of the surrender the EU will demand. Second, they are deluding themselves that any concessions we make this year can be unpicked next year. This will not be possible, because the EU will skilfully lock us in with legal language; it will have no incentive to budge since we’ll have given up our biggest bargaining chip (the cash), and, in Britain, any political desire even to talk about the EU will be exhausted.

Boris Johnson is one of the few who is fully aware of these points, and he’s desperate to stop the surrender. But his party, MPS and members alike, have stopped listening. He is now a Cassandra, his outbursts discounted as cynical troublemaking driven by leadership ambitions. Instead, Brexit MPS are taking their lead from Michael Gove, who has decided, so far, not to rock the boat. Ironically, this is because it is now Mr Gove who has his eyes fixed on the throne. Only last week he set out his stall to Tory centrists in a wide-ranging speech on capitalism (not exactly his brief) delivered at Policy Exchange, the Cameroon think tank. Meanwhile, David Davis blusters like an old bull, furious whenever he wakes up, but soon thereafter falling back into a somnambulant state.

This unhappy breakdown of the Brexit alliance has cleared the way for Theresa May to retreat, and each time she and her MPS accept defeat on one front, the EU pushes another, using Northern Ireland as a battering ram. Before the year is out, the Tories will realise the terrible choice before them: either compromise territorial integrity by sacrificing Northern Ireland, accepting border checks in the Irish Sea and then negotiating a trade deal only for the rest of Britain, or subject the whole UK not just to EU customs policy but also to the full jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and free movement. This is the poisoned chalice Brexit MPS have yet to grasp.

The Government is still trying to avoid it, and last week’s customs paper contained a wheeze to that end. If tried in January, it might actually have worked. Now, though, it’s too late.

Here’s how it might have worked. The withdrawal agreement Mrs May struck in December was largely a slam dunk for the EU, but it did contain some tantalising ambiguities. These centred on the idea of a “backstop” – an arrangement whereby there will be no hard border on Ireland even if there’s no EU-UK trade deal. This backstop was not outlined in detail, but had two key features. Firstly, the agreement said, it would mean there are no regulatory or customs barriers between Northern Ireland and the south. Secondly, at the insistence of the DUP, it states that it will not change the UK constitutional order by erecting barriers between Northern Ireland and Britain.

The implications of these statements together was not immediately clear in Britain. But the EU realised quickly that it had inadvertently offered us a “cherry-picking” model. It promised frictionless trade between Ireland (and therefore the EU), Northern Ireland and the UK. Yet it made no mention of ECJ jurisdiction and free movement. It divided Brussels’ treasured “four freedoms”. This still wasn’t a good outcome for Britain, because the backstop requires us to maintain “full alignment” with EU law, ruling out regulatory divergence. But because the document did not detail how Britain would be obliged to do this, it left open the question of ditching ECJ rules and free movement. In theory, it allowed the UK to regain immigration control and to start interpreting EU law using its own regulators and courts.

This was not acceptable to the Brussels federalists. At this point, in January or February, our Government might have quickly translated the agreement into legal text that favoured its interests. Instead, paralysed by Cabinet division, it waited, and the EU filled the vaccuum. Its text in March explicitly detailed the border checks needed on the Irish Sea, severing Belfast from London. It made clear that if the UK wanted independence and Canada-style free trade, it couldn’t take Northern Ireland with it.

For Ireland, this was a double-edged sword. On one hand, it directly contradicts Dublin’s need for smooth, frictionless trade post-brexit. Nearly all of Ireland’s trade with the EU passes through Britain and so any checks on the Irish Sea will inevitably capture its trade too. This isn’t in Dublin’s interests. On the other hand, cutting off Northern Ireland from Britain is so unpalatable that it puts pressure on our Government to choose another option, which would suit Ireland very well: keeping the whole UK inside the single market and customs union.

For Dublin, this is an all-or-nothing bet. For Brussels ideologues, it’s win-win. They may rather have Britain stay inside the single market, but ultimately don’t care if Ireland is hurt by border checks on the Irish Sea so long as EU legal order is preserved. (Brussels types are now, in Orwellian fashion, refusing to call them “border checks” and will only call them “checks”, to hide their relationship to sovereignty).

As for Mrs May, in whose hands the decision rests, she will do whatever keeps her in power. Accepting ECJ rule and free movement will be electorally toxic, but agreeing to Irish Sea border checks will cost her much-needed DUP support in Parliament. Because this latter concern is a more immediate threat to her power, she will almost certainly choose to keep Britain inside the single market and customs union.

This will be a dreadful result. We’ll give up our MEPS and officials in Brussels, but still be subject to its rules. Any other option, whether it’s staying in the EU, leaving with no deal, or surrendering Northern Ireland, would be a better outcome. Instead, inexorably, our Prime Minister is leading us towards the worst of all possible worlds.