Yahoo News Brexit weekly briefing: nowhere to go after historic defeat
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Well, that was quite a week. As widely expected, the withdrawal agreement that Theresa May negotiated with the EU27 was crushed in the House of Commons, suffering – not quite so widely expected – the heaviest defeat in UK parliamentary history.
The prime minister then survived a no-confidence motion tabled by Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader. But gobsmacked EU ministers made plain that the withdrawal agreement could not be renegotiated – although the political declaration on future relations could be tweaked – and that no progress would be made towards an orderly Brexit until the deal had majority support in the UK parliament.
Paying at least lip service to that notion, May and others met senior opposition figures to discuss a Brexit compromise, but ruled out softening the government’s red lines on the customs union and would not to talk to Corbyn, who said he didn’t want to anyway until she took a no-deal Brexit off the table, so yah boo sucks.
As the prime minister consulted her cabinet before presenting plan B to parliament this week, hardliners urged her to prepare for no deal, warning that she must stand firm on the customs union or risk a Tory party split. She gave in.
All this left May with nowhere to go and “no actual solutions” in her plan B update to the Commons. And indeed, plan B turned out to be a repeat of plan A: Brussels would have to change the terms of the backstop, which it has repeatedly refused to do.
Apart from waiving the £65 fee for EU citizens registering for settled status and promising to consult more widely, the prime minister rejected both a second referendum and an extension to article 50, entrenching her existing positions.
Parliamentary guerrilla warfare continued, meanwhile, with MPs including Yvette Cooper, Sarah Wollaston and Nick Boles drawing up a raft of amendments aimed at stopping a no-deal Brexit, as well as paving the way for “indicative votes”. No 10 was unimpressed.
The position of Labour – whose Commons votes will be crucial if any solution is to emerge with parliamentary backing – remained complicated. Despite calls for Labour to keep the second referendum option open, Corbyn could face up to a dozen frontbench resignations if he backs a “people’s vote”.
EU member states, fearing the worst, began pushing through their no-deal contingency measures as a matter of urgency.
What next
MPs will have a full day to debate May’s “neutral” plan B motion on 29 January and will then vote on several amendments to it – probably including on holding a second referendum and on ruling out no-deal.
May’s strategy remains to use the no-deal threat to persuade MPs to back her plan. In that sense, amendments aiming to extend article 50 to avoid no-deal might help her: if she can confront the Commons with a choice between her deal, ie Brexit, and a long extension to article 50, ie possibly no Brexit, Tory rebels could think twice.
In theory, the government is therefore looking for further talks with the EU, followed by another “meaningful” vote on a – hopefully, it must presume, suitably amended – version of the PM’s Brexit plan in February.
The EU will not reopen the withdrawal agreement or scrap the backstop, but could consider allowing more time by extending article 50 for a “valid reason”. In short, we’re no nearer to knowing anything much about how things play out from here.
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Top comment
In the Guardian, John Harris warns that England’s “rebel spirit” is rising, and it appears to want no-deal:
No-deal is the position that scores of people have recently expressed to me without prompting: “we should just get out”; “we have to leave, now”; “why can’t we just walk away?” At its heart, I suppose, is a terrible logic, combined with a certain stubborn ignorance, which results in an insistence that the only thing that matches what millions of people thought they were voting for in 2016 is a clean break … But there are questions about no-dealism that are bound up with England, and national traits that go back centuries. What never seems to go away is the self-image of an island nation, the seductive myth of Britain standing alone, and an eternally mistrustful attitude towards the EU, now intensified by the bloodless functionaries – Tusk, Barnier, Juncker – apparently calling the shots on Brexit.
And Fintan O’Toole says Brexit was never really about Europe:
European leaders have continually expressed exasperation that the British have really been negotiating not with them, but with each other. But perhaps it is time to recognise that there is a useful truth in this: Brexit is really just the vehicle that has delivered a fraught state to a place where it can no longer pretend to be a settled and functioning democracy. Brexit’s work is done – everyone can now see that the Westminster dodo is dead. It is time to move on from the pretence that the problem with British democracy is the EU and to recognise that it is with itself.
Top tweet
Is EU patience with Britain’s politicking wearing thin? German’s economy minister suggests so:
Sympathy, patience & readiness to wait until the UK’s position will be clarified are of utmost important to avoid the worst. They should not be misused for party politics. Large majority wants to exclude hard #Brexit - in the interest of the UK & beyond.
— Peter Altmaier (@peteraltmaier) January 21, 2019
