A bad deal – but is it better than no deal?

These are momentous times for British politics, the implications of which will determine the fate of the nation. Last night, following a marathon Cabinet meeting, and what the Prime Minister described as “long, detailed and impassioned debate”, ministers agreed to her draft Withdrawal Agreement. Speaking outside No 10, Theresa May said: “I firmly believe with my heart and my head that this is a decision that is in the best interests of the entire United Kingdom.”

With rumours of an imminent leadership challenge swirling, the Prime Minister acknowledged that the days ahead will not be easy. Indeed, although detailed analysis of the 500-page draft text will follow, the key controversies are already apparent. The UK is expected to sign up to a backstop that could leave the whole country trapped in a customs union with the EU – trapped being the apposite word, given the absence of a unilateral withdrawal mechanism. We will be paying billions to Brussels with no guarantee that a free-trade deal will follow. Both Conservatives and DUP MPS are disturbed by the implications for the Union, given that the deal could result in Northern Ireland being forced to accept EU regulations the rest of the UK will escape. And Scottish Tories fear the Government’s commitment to leave the Common Fisheries Policy after December 2020 will not last for long.

It is a deal, none the less, and one secured at considerable political cost to Mrs May. It is also a deal, assuming it is signed off by the EU, that MPS will soon have to decide whether or not to support.

Three contrasting lines of argument are arrayed to persuade them. The first is a comforting one for Brexiteers, and it is believed to be the thinking of Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary. It suggests that the Withdrawal Agreement is a temporary concession, merely the foundation on which to build a more palatable arrangement. The political situation will change: at some point, there may be a parliamentary majority to break out of the EU’S maw, and the EU is likely to undergo substantial change of its own. So it would pay to stay sanguine, nod through Mrs May’s deal, and prepare for the moment when it can either be repudiated entirely or renegotiated.

The second was best articulated by Lord Hague on Radio 4’s programme yesterday. The former foreign secretary is no longer in government and is therefore able to speak frankly about the deal in a way serving ministers cannot. Reaching this stage has involved substantial concessions, he admitted, but they are exactly the sort of concessions you need to make to minimise any economic costs. Voting against this deal, he argued, risks not a “no deal” but no Brexit at all, and putting this issue to bed will enable the Tories to talk about other priorities.

To the likes of Boris Johnson, the former foreign secretary, both of these arguments are dangerously naive. The first assumes that it will be possible to change the relationship once it has been agreed. Why would the EU let us do that? The backstop would tie the country submissively into a customs arrangement that we will not be able to leave unilaterally. The UK would be rule-takers, vulnerable to whatever policymaking whims Eurocrats dream up to damage our economy. And there would no longer be any incentive for the EU to reopen the negotiations: it would already have our money and access to our markets. Surely, the argument goes, it is better to accept some short-term pain, potentially in the form of a no-deal Brexit, than to concede a deal that over the long term is in many ways worse than remaining in the EU?

Moreover, accepting the deal would not settle the matter for good, but open a wound in British politics that may not be healed for a generation. People would be entitled to feel aggrieved that the Brexit they voted for had been lost. Brexit has acted as a safety valve for populist sentiment in the UK, as those dissatisfied with the system held out hope for the real change that a properly conducted exit from the EU would deliver. Anger will only grow if the backstop leaves the country stuck in an arrangement from which it can never break free.

What all of these arguments have in common is an acceptance, implicit or explicit, that this is not the good deal that the public was anticipating, but a bad one. Perhaps this was inevitable. Losing her parliamentary majority left Mrs May managing warring factions with radically different visions of what Brexit should entail and vulnerable to the machinations of Remainers. The Withdrawal Agreement was arguably always going to look like this, given what was agreed in December last year.

But Mrs May has spent the past few years telling us that no deal is better than a bad deal. Now she must convince both her MPS and the public that the opposite is true. The big question in politics is whether she will be able to. The answer will determine both the future of the country and her own political fate.

The UK is expected to sign up to a backstop that could leave the country trapped in a customs union with the EU

There is an acceptance among MPS that this is not the good deal that the public was anticipating