How the Brexit purists can still save the day

BRINKMANSHIP is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as ‘ the art or practice of pursuing a dangerous policy to the limits of safety, before stopping’.

For the tactic to be successful, the last part of that definition is crucial. The practitioner must pull back from the brink at the critical moment – or risk mutuallyassured destruction.

In the context of Brexit, the Tory purists of the European Research Group have reached this tipping point.

The question is, will they have the common sense to apply the brakes? Or are they so pig-headed that they will hurtle into the abyss, taking their party and their country with them?

Thankfully, there are signs they may finally be coming round.

Writing in today’s Mail, the ERG’s leading light Jacob Rees-Mogg says that although he doesn’t like the May deal, he’ll now back it because ‘all the other potential outcomes are worse’. The Mail welcomes this conversion and we hope it heralds a wider outbreak of sanity.

Since the chaotic events of Monday, when Parliament seized control of the Brexit agenda, the ERG’s default preference of a No Deal outcome has been nullified.

Furthermore, all the ‘indicative votes’ put forward by MPs as possible substitutes for Theresa May’s deal would lead to a much softer Brexit – or no Brexit at all.

The most popular model appears to be ‘Norway-plus’, aka ‘Common Market 2.0’.

This would see us stay in the single market and customs union, retain freedom of movement, pay massive fees and concede the supremacy of the European Court.

For the ERG, this represents their primal fear – Brexit in name only.

By contrast, let’s look at what the May deal offers. Beyond the implementation period, it would take us out of the single market and customs union, end free movement, restore primacy of British law and end our eyewatering membership fees.

Yes, there are still issues over the Irish backstop but, with all parties desperate to avoid a hard border, is it really impossible to solve them over the next 21 months? The Democratic Unionists are understandably nervous about anything which treats Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the UK, and their support remains hugely important to the success of the May deal.

But Attorney General Geoffrey Cox now believes there are legal ways to leave the backstop unilaterally. Coming from such a passionate Brexiteer, this ought to provide sufficient reassurance for the DUP.

The alternative could be their ultimate nightmare – a government led by Jeremy Corbyn, an uncompromising Irish nationalist who would happily gift the Six Counties to Dublin if he could.

Indeed, a hard-Left Corbyn government, with its spiteful and ruinous class-war agenda, would be far worse for the whole of the UK than any of the Brexit options.

But if the May deal falls, and the Tory Party tears itself apart, Mr Corbyn is exactly what we’re likely to get.

Mr Rees-Mogg has pointed the way to salvation. It’s now up to other leading Eurosceptics such as Boris Johnson and Iain Duncan Smith to follow his lead.

The time for sniping from the sidelines is over. Britain is mired in the most dangerous political and constitutional crisis in recent history. To navigate a way out, the warring factions of the Tory Party must unite behind the deal.

The prize is huge. An instant economic surge, a bounce in Tory fortunes and security for countless hard-working families.

But the price of failure is almost too grim to contemplate. A schism that could render the Tory Party unelectable and a Marxist creating havoc in Downing Street.

We are truly on the brink. Only a madman would want to tip us over into the void.