Graham Brady:
They say the best way to keep a secret is to make a speech about it in the House of Commons: but I was still perplexed when some people were surprised that I voted against the EU Withdrawal Agreement in Parliament. Not only had I made it clear why I couldn’t support the agreement on the opening day of the EU debate in December, but I’d also said so several times on national TV and radio. As chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs, I do try to spread peace and harmony among my colleagues but I’m also determined that our great country wins back the right of democratic selfgovernment.
Compromise will be needed as we unpick the tendrils of EU control that have grown into every corner of British life over the past 45 years, particularly as the Prime Minister works to pull this off with no overall majority in Parliament behind her; but one aspect of the Withdrawal Agreement is a compromise too far.
The “Irish backstop” would treat Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the UK, creating a serious obstacle for Unionists – especially those in the DUP and the Scottish Conservatives. What’s more, it would hold the entire UK in the EU Customs Union, taking rules handed down from Brussels and barred from signing trade agreements with the world’s fastest growing markets.
Worse still, if Britain were trapped in the backstop there would be no incentive for the EU to agree a good free-trade agreement with the UK, ever. Michel Barnier claims to hate the backstop: it is a huge concession to Britain, he protests. If ever we were forced to rely on the arrangement, he claims, it could only be the briefest of flings, a cinq à sept, on the way home from work.
But if he is so determined that the protocol could only ever last for months, why is the EU insisting that the legal text of the Withdrawal Agreement contains no time limit or other mechanism for us ever to leave it? Following two and a half years of hardball negotiation (in which they have run rings round the British team), the other side can hardly feign surprise that sensible Brits have started to count the spoons after every meeting.
So, as the Prime Minister surveys the scene and weighs up the options, none of them is perfect. She is right to see a second referendum as a betrayal of trust; membership of the Customs Union would seriously limit the economic opportunities for an independent Britain. Norway is, as every Remain campaigner said during the referendum, “the worst of all worlds” (no offence to our Scandinavian friends), and an extension of Article 50 is just a route to more pain, for longer. Perhaps more fundamentally, none of these options can command majority support in Parliament or country.
Improbable as it may seem, the only thing left standing when the smoke clears is Mrs May’s Withdrawal Agreement. Wobbly, deeply flawed, and virtually friendless, the agreement might none the less be the only bridge left standing that can lead us to freedom. All we need to do is make the backstop explicitly temporary. We don’t need the whole agreement reopened, just a legally binding codicil that prescribes an end date or allows one or both sides to leave it unilaterally.
Without the backstop trap, we can leave the EU on March 29, we will have the transition period that calms business jitters, we can progress to the really important discussions about our future trading relationship and confound the doom-mongers who say the world is about to end. Not all MPs would support this proposition but I believe it would unite nearly all Conservatives and satisfy our confidence and supply partners. At that point, it would be worth considering for the more publicly spirited members on the Labour benches too.
On Wednesday, as Mr Corbyn’s confidence vote ground to its predictable conclusion, I was struck by two things: the first was that the leader of the Opposition had done a great job of healing the divisions in the Conservative Party; the second that the unhappiest faces were on the Opposition side. The mass of decent Labour MPs agreed with Michael Gove’s conclusion that their leader is unfit to govern, and dozens want to respect the outcome of the Peoples’ Vote that took place two years ago. Despite a painful defeat for the Government on Tuesday, it is easier for my side to see light at the end of the tunnel than it is for theirs.
Sir Graham Brady is Conservative MP for Altrincham and Sale West at telegraph.co.uk/opinion