Brussels has screwed Britain, Remainers have screwed the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister has screwed the Leavers. The result is the establishment has screwed the public

Brussels has stitched up Britain, Remainers the PM, and Mrs May the Leavers. Norway-plus is no way out

If Theresa May loses the Brexit vote next Tuesday, she might be forced from office sooner than Downing Street thinks. Labour will threaten a confidence vote, hoping for an election. The DUP – furious about Northern Ireland’s status in the Withdrawal Agreement – could demand the PM’S head before offering the Tories their support. The only thing that might save her is if Labour, wary of uniting the Tories against them, dither before acting.

That is for next week, however. This week was momentous, because it was the week that Brexit was finally killed off. Will Britain take control of its laws, its borders and its money? To quote Margaret Thatcher with more melancholy than defiance: no, no, no.

Tuesday’s vote to hold the Government in contempt of Parliament was significant. The Attorney General’s legal advice confirms that the Withdrawal Agreement’s backstop is a trap from which we cannot escape and which cuts off Northern Ireland from the rest of the country.

But more important still was Dominic Grieve’s amendment. This means, come January, if the Withdrawal Agreement is not ratified, the Commons will take control of Brexit. And a majority in Parliament, of course, which voted for the referendum, to accept its result, and invoke Article 50, hates Brexit more than anything.

Any attempt to negotiate something better than the existing deal is now impossible, and a no-deal Brexit will almost certainly be stopped. If the Government loses next Tuesday’s vote, we will be left with two likely options: the Norway model, or a second referendum.

The referendum option is exactly what everyone knows it to be: a blatant attempt to overturn the original result. Remainers – including famous straight-talkers like Alastair Campbell and Tony Blair – cannot agree on the question that should be on the ballot paper, but all agree that Remain must be included.

And what of the other option? Joining the European Economic Area (EEA), like Norway, would be a peculiar outcome. The idea was once, supposedly, a silver bullet: a cost-free way of abandoning the withdrawal process and “reverting” to EEA membership. But further examination suggests Britain cannot join without a new negotiation, because we signed the EEA agreement only in our capacity as an EU member state.

Norway was supposed to be a temporary solution, allowing Britain to move towards a Canada-style trading relationship with Europe. But Norway For Now has rapidly become Norway Forever, because EEA membership is not automatic, and neither the EU nor the EEA want Britain to join for a few years, only to leave again. Norway Forever, of course, is what many Remainers have wanted since we voted to leave the EU.

And that is not all, because Britain will not be allowed a Norwegian-style relationship on Norwegian terms. The EEA does not, alone, resolve the Northern Irish border question so Norway-plus, as it has become known now, will almost certainly require us to form a customs union with the EU. We will be unable to strike trade deals with other countries, and will have to accept whatever the EU negotiates on our behalf, regardless of the cost to jobs and competitiveness.

And a customs union would not be the only plus in Norway-plus. The EU has already made clear that it would bind Britain more tightly to its rules and regulations than Norway and the other EEA member states. This could mean we would be unable to delay new EU rules, as the EEA countries often do, and it could also mean that policies outside the scope of the EEA agreement – on agriculture or fisheries perhaps – would be included for Britain.

What is certain is that we would have to follow EU rules over which we would have no say, accept the free movement of people in perpetuity, and make annual payments to the EU budget. We would not take back control of our laws, borders and money. We would concede them to Brussels all over again.

And the Norway option would not even necessarily avoid the hated backstop. Because EEA membership would need to be negotiated, we would need time. The substance of the draft Withdrawal Agreement would therefore survive, including the necessary transition and the backstop too. Norway-plus could itself be subject to another backstop agreement.

So what does Norway solve? It started life as an alternative to our terms of withdrawal, but it fails to change those terms and instead locks us into a future relationship that recovers very little sovereignty.

Whether we end up with Norway, a referendum that takes us back in to the EU, or even the PM’S deal, Brexit, in any meaningful sense, is over. Brussels has screwed Britain, Remainers have screwed the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister has screwed the Leavers. And the result is the establishment has screwed the public, who voted in record numbers to leave the European Union. A choice between Brexit in name only and no Brexit is no choice at all.