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Thursday, December 14, 2017
I refuse to believe that Brexit is unstoppable
After this week, I refuse to believe that Brexit is unstoppable
The government’s Commons defeat opens up new and far-reaching
possibilities – of a second referendum and of the leaving process coming
off the rails
Appearances
matter a lot in politics. But in the end, the numbers matter more. On
Brexit as on everything else, Theresa May has always behaved as if she
is a prime minister with a clear parliamentary majority, a united party
and a reconciled country behind her. But the reality is that she is none
of these things, and Wednesday’s four-vote Commons defeat has found her out.
May’s prime ministership is doomed to be defined by the jagged
interface between two unreconciled mandates. The first, on Brexit, she
did not want but has inherited. The second, a post-referendum
parliamentary majority, she desired but was denied. The disjunction between the two outcomes still shapes everything about her government. It is not sufficiently understood that May called the 2017 general
election in part so that she would have a post-referendum parliamentary
mandate to drive through the hard Brexit to which she committed –
consulting only Nick Timothy
– in autumn 2016. She needed that majority, so she persuaded herself,
in order to compel pro-European Tories to vote in line with the
manifesto and against their beliefs, and support her version of Brexit. Politics today would be different if she had succeeded. True, nothing will stop Ken Clarke
and perhaps Anna Soubry from voting against Brexit in whatever form it
is presented. But May’s attempt to parliamentarise the referendum result
– to translate an advisory plebiscite into a manifesto commitment for a
re-elected representative government to carry out – failed. That
failure changed everything, even though May has continued to pretend and
perhaps believe otherwise. The result was a corridor of uncertainty between the moral force of the leave vote in 2016
and the moral depletion of the lost majority in 2017. That space is the
political achilles heel, not just of May but of Brexit itself. It makes
it much easier for MPs of all parties, but crucially for Tory rebel
MPs, to oppose a hard Brexit, aspects of Brexit and even any Brexit at
all. It has now permitted, in the words of yesterday’s Daily Mail front page, “11 self-consumed malcontents [to] pull the rug from under our EU negotiators” in Wednesday’s vote. Strictly speaking, this vote was not about Brexit at all, but about legislative process. Dominic Grieve’s amendment
is often described as a commitment to give parliament a “meaningful
vote” about the outcome of the Brexit talks between the UK and the EU.
But it does not say this in the words that have now been added to clause
9 of the EU withdrawal bill. Those new words say that ministers cannot
now issue the regulations they intended to use to implement a Brexit
deal without passing a new statute to authorise them.
As several MPs from both sides of the Brexit
argument pointed out in the debate this week, the government could have
nipped the revolt in the bud by withdrawing the clause in the bill
authorising the power to issues regulations. Something of that sort may
yet happen before the bill heads to the Lords in the new year.
The impeccably principled procedural focus of Grieve’s amendment
gave him a defence against being anti-Brexit, and helped to make voting
against the government into an act that promoted parliamentary
sovereignty against the executive, rather than an attempt to scupper the
leavers. But it also produced Wednesday afternoon’s extended
debate-within-a-debate in which Oliver Letwin argued, surely correctly,
that Grieve’s amendment in practice permitted parliament to throw out a
Brexit deal and thus to throw out Brexit itself. In the end, this is why the vote this week was so important. In the
short run, the public reminder of her weakness is embarrassing to May as
she confirms her initial Brexit deal
with the EU in Brussels – though she’s hardly the only leader round the
dinner table with domestic political problems. It is nevertheless also a
signal that the rebels can walk the walk as well as talk the talk and
have to be taken more seriously – not least next Wednesday, when there
is the vote on May’s foolish attempt to write the 29 March 2019 date
into the withdrawal bill. All this was dismissed rather too easily
before this week. It takes a lot of the gloss off what might otherwise
have been a good week for the prime minister in the Brexit process. Yet the deeper importance of Wednesday’s vote is that it keeps the
Brexit issues in play. Remember the key development of the week: the
Commons vote means there must be a government bill at the end of the
Brexit talks. The earliest realistic date for that would be autumn 2018.
Bills can be amended, perhaps over specific soft/hard policy issues in
the deal, such as membership of the customs union,
but also by the addition of requirements to hold a referendum on the
terms, or to request an extension of the article 50 process to
accommodate further talks or to allow time for a second referendum
to be held. Bills can even be defeated. Though unlikely, it is not
inconceivable that the May government could fall on a Brexit issue that
it treats as a vote of confidence. The chances of any of this actually happening are still small. The
context in which such possibilities might be serious options are very
difficult to predict. The timetable pressures on everything to do with
Brexit are incredibly tight. Yet it is a fact that good judges of the
political mood do not rule out such things as a second referendum as
readily as they did last year. And it is also a fact that outright
opponents have an emerging plan to stop Brexit altogether, to bring all
the critics under a single campaigning umbrella, and have talked to top
officials within the EU about aspects of the plan.
A second referendum is now absolutely central to any such effort. The
reasons for this are straightforward. Many pro-Europeans hate
referendums and wish to expunge them for ever from the political
repertoire. But even they recognise that only a second referendum can
possibly overturn the first. Only the people can change the people’s
decision. No parliamentary vote would have the political or moral force
to do that. If parliament killed Brexit on its own, politics would pay
the price for years to come. It remains government dogma that there will not be a second
referendum. David Davis said it again in the Commons yesterday. But
public opinion, which has not shifted much on the substantive issue of
leave or remain, has moved markedly towards embracing a referendum on
the terms. A year ago, opponents of a second vote had a 19-point poll lead. Now supporters have a lead of 16 points.
That is a big turnaround. It may not survive the perception, if it
develops, that May has struck a good deal in Brussels. But May herself
could find that a pledge to hold a second referendum on the terms could
protect her from the ups and downs of the Brexit process over the next
15 months. The passing of the Grieve amendment is a big moment for May and for
the Tory party. It may be a freak high tide of revolt against May’s
Brexit strategy. Alternatively, it may be a watershed moment after which
the whole landscape of Brexit options looks different. Boris Johnson
said yesterday that Brexit was unstoppable.
Well he would, wouldn’t he? But the events of this week have actually
raised the opposite possibility – that May’s Brexit can be still be
changed, and perhaps even stopped.
Betty MacDonald Fan Club, founded by Wolfgang Hampel, has members in 40 countries.
Wolfgang Hampel, author of Betty MacDonald biography interviewed Betty MacDonald's family and friends. His Interviews have been published on CD and DVD by Betty MacDonald Fan Club. If you are interested in the Betty MacDonald Biography or the Betty MacDonald Interviews send us a mail, please.
Several original Interviews with Betty MacDonald are available.
We are also organizing international Betty MacDonald Fan Club Events for example, Betty MacDonald Fan Club Eurovision Song Contest Meetings in Oslo and Düsseldorf, Royal Wedding Betty MacDonald Fan Club Event in Stockholm and Betty MacDonald Fan Club Fifa Worldcup Conferences in South Africa and Germany.
Betty MacDonald Fan Club Honour Members are Monica Sone, author of Nisei Daughter and described as Kimi in Betty MacDonald's The Plague and I, Betty MacDonald's nephew, artist and writer Darsie Beck, Betty MacDonald fans and beloved authors and artists Gwen Grant, Letizia Mancino, Perry Woodfin, Traci Tyne Hilton, Tatjana Geßler, music producer Bernd Kunze, musician Thomas Bödigheimer, translater Mary Holmes and Mr. Tigerli.
