The Observer view on why MPs must vote in our best interests in the Brexit moment of truth
Boris Johnson is rarely right about anything. But the foreign secretary spoke true last week when, in otherwise indiscreet and disloyal remarks, he all but admitted the cause of a hard Tory Brexit was lost. Theresa May should have acted tougher with Brussels, he said… Trumpstyle confrontation might have produced better results… Brexit had been betrayed by the Treasury… People were fearful of a looming, anarchic meltdown. Johnson’s selfexculpatory complaining was embarrassing. But his conclusion – that the Brexit process has reached a “moment of truth” and the hopes of Brexit purists will probably be disappointed – was entirely accurate.
This larger “truth” to which Johnson pointed is that he and the likes of Michael Gove, Nigel Farage, Liam Fox, David Davis and the Daily Mail’s Paul Dacre sold the British people a false bill of goods in 2016. The truth, confirmed by myriad, independent post-referendum studies, is that leaving the EU, on whatever terms, will harm the livelihoods, living standards and job prospects of most British citizens, especially the young. The truth is that Brexit will damage the cohesion, mutual tolerance and integrity of British society in numerous, avoidable ways. The dawning, sobering truth, as we have always argued, is that Brexit – soft, hard or medium-rare – is a disaster in the making that will render Britain a weaker, lonelier, poorer and uglier place.
Never a captain to go down with his ship, Johnson was distancing himself from this coming wreck. Others of his ilk are jumping for the life rafts. Iain Duncan-Smith, selfappointed Brexit minister-without portfolio, cut a sorry figure last week as he blamed French port workers for the UK’s self-inflicted border trade and traffic chaos. Another favourite scapegoat is Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, and the European commission. An outof-his-depth Davis complained again last week that Brussels was trying to unfairly punish the UK. What did he expect? On the evidence of last week’s customs “backstop” row, Davis is better able to outmanoeuvre his own leader than he is the EU.
The disillusion and dissension in the hard Tory Brexit camp extends deep inside Theresa May’s cabinet. For 18 months, the prime minister has irresponsibly placated a minority on the Tory right at the expense of Britain’s best interests. May has done this not because maintaining a united front is important or because she believes in the rightness of Brexit. After all, she voted Remain. She has appeased hardliners not because, as she claims, the referendum delivered an unambiguous mandate. Most people in the country did not vote Leave. May has acted in this way simply to hang on to her job.
This weak, ramshackle, divided government has survived because May has made an art form of denial. But now, as Johnson admitted, a reckoning can no longer be avoided. May must adopt the consensus view that has always commanded a majority on both sides of the Commons or sink without trace in a sea of ignominy and chaos. She must relax her foolishly inflexible Lancaster House red lines on the single market and customs union. She must rethink her approach to freedom of movement for the sake of the vacancy-plagued NHS, agriculture and many other sectors – and basic human decency.
She must cease recklessly jeopardising the Good Friday agreement, the Act of Union with Scotland and the UK’s international security and intelligence-sharing partnerships.
How to make this happen? A remedy is at hand, called parliamentary democracy and one of the British people’s crowning achievements. Now, the sovereign power of parliament faces a crucial test. After 15 government defeats in the Lords, amendments to the EU withdrawal bill will necessitate votes on a host of crucial issues. Most importantly, the Commons will vote on who decides if any final deal is good enough to pass muster. As amendments on Brexit bills are voted on over the coming weeks, MPs have a responsibility to act in the country’s best interests. Yet these golden opportunities to demonstrate parliament’s will and decide Brexit on its merits would have been denied us had May’s government had its highhanded way. Ministers wanted to rush through the bill with a minimum of scrutiny. Even now, they are restricting the time available for debate.
Yet, thanks to cross-party alliances forged in the Lords, the Conservative and Labour leaders, and pro-Brexit MPs, will this week be obliged to justify why they think quitting or, in Labour’s case, notquite-quitting, the single market, the most advantageous and profitable trading arrangement the UK has enjoyed, is a good idea. Business leaders are aghast. Foreign investors are dismayed. Jobs, livelihoods and communities are at risk. So let the Brexiters state the case for this act of economic vandalism. And let them, hopefully, be voted down.
May and Jeremy Corbyn, perennially perched on the fence, will also be honour-bound to explain how destroying the customs union and replacing it with “a” customs union, or none at all, will make Britons more prosperous, more secure and more in charge of their destiny. Both know the accumulating evidence suggests the opposite. According to HMRC, the “max fac” customs option would cost £20bn for starters, entail disastrous delays and fail to avoid a “hard” Irish border. Like May’s vague “partnership” option, it has been rejected by the EU as unworkable. On this, and on amendments concerning civil rights, ministerial powers, environmental regulation and food safety, MPs must take a stand or face accusations of rubberstamping the excesses of an already over-powerful executive.
The Commons must also make its voice heard on whether a “meaningful vote” will be held this autumn on the terms of any deal. It was always undemocratic, amounting almost to contempt of parliament, for May try to impose a takeit-or-leave-it ultimatum. It is irresponsible to dangle the threat of a “no-deal” exit as a way of corralling dissenters. It is for MPs, voting with their consciences, to give the final green light to Brexit or send the government back to Brussels in search of a better deal – or, indeed, to give the country its say by means of a second referendum.
Once again, we must emphasise that we are not ignoring or negating the 2016 result. But let us speak plainly. The referendum was an advisory vote on a yes-or-no proposition. The debate before it was wildly uninformed, frequently misleading and sometimes deceitful. Research has shown that many people voted Leave for reasons unconnected to the EU, a protest against the failings of the political establishment, Tory and Labour, and who can blame them? The referendum did not and could not provide answers to the momentous and nuanced choices facing this country. These are, at last, coming into urgent focus after a long, painful learning period.
It is right and logical that MPs should have the final say on Brexit, since May and her ministers have proved unequal to the task. They are incapable of agreeing even the most pressing issues, such as customs arrangements at the Irish border. They do not agree, or have shifted position, on freedom of movement, immigration and the European court of justice. Ministers still have no final answers to many legitimate questions posed by Britons living in the EU and EU citizens living here.
They dodge and weave when pressed about the damage that will be done, for example, to international funding and foreign student attendance at universities and to British participation in the Galileo satellite project. With nine months to go, the white paper on the relationship with Europe remains jottings on the back of an envelope. What confidence can the public have, when contemplating chaos on the railways, underfunding of the NHS, the Windrush scandal, Grenfell and the failure to oversee public sector contractors such as Carillion, in the ability of May’s government to get anything right?
In a sense, this fiasco is unifying, for all can agree on one fact: this government has made a mess of Brexit. May must stop pretending a “close and special relationship” with the EU can be obtained without the concessions to common sense or without continued pan-European cooperation. If she cannot see sense, her hand must be forced – or she must go. It is time for MPs to lead. For the sake of Britain’s prosperity, cohesion and self-respect, this must be the moment of truth when parliament takes back control.