Evening Standard comment: Brussels, not Theresa May, calls the shots on Brexit

The last time details of one of Theresa May’s European dinners were leaked to a German newspaper, we heard a story of unrealistic obstinacy.

Mrs May responded with a public warning on the steps of Downing Street that the leaks proved the EU was deliberately trying to sabotage the general election she had just called. It needn’t have bothered.

She sabotaged her own election, and six months later a much weaker and diminished Mrs May sat down last week for another meal with the EU Commission.

This time the German papers reported on a Prime Minister who is “scared, despondent and dejected”. Gone is the pretence of an à la carte negotiation all agreed in two years: she is now prepared to take an off-the-shelf transition deal where we sign up to EU rules until at least 2021.

Gone, too, is the claim that we don’t have to pay. Mrs May more than doubled the offer on the table; British taxpayers will now pay up to €50 billion just to leave the EU.

No wonder the EU team noticed the change from the “crowing” of the previous encounter; Mrs May, they said, was “begging for help”.

Remember these are only the opening skirmishes in the battle that Britain has plunged itself into.

We haven’t even begun the discussion among ourselves of the final arrangement we want with the EU, let alone started that conversation with Brussels. Do we want a trade deal with the EU that would allow us to “take back control” of rule-making, allow us to protect certain industries (eg, fishing) and ban trade in things we don’t like (eg, live animal exports)?

Some in the Cabinet propose this — and say the loss of trade with the EU that would result from this great act of protectionism would be made up by new trade with the rest of the world. But the limitations of that ambition were exposed by Dr Liam Fox’s stunning announcement this weekend that he’s no longer seeking a free-trade deal in goods with the US because of the controversy at home over things like chlorinated chicken.

Instead, he wants to land a much narrower deal on services — which itself will beg difficult questions on everything from access to NHS contracts to acceptance of Wall Street banking laws.

No wonder, then, that the business community and many in the Cabinet want simply to sign up wholesale to the rules of the European Union on a semi-permanent basis.

It would amount to a Norway-style membership of the European Economic Area, where we pay money, accept free movement of people and adopt EU rules.

The only thing we will have left is our seat at the Council of Ministers, and we will relinquish what control we already have. No one knows exactly how the Cabinet divides on all this because the Prime Minister is too weak to have the discussion this side of Christmas.

And no one knows whether the hung Parliament will support whatever position the Cabinet ultimately adopts, because the Government is too weak to risk votes on its Brexit Bill for the time being.

Mrs May now plays her weakness as her strongest card. She warned EU leaders last Friday that if they didn’t help her, then her government would fall and they’d get Boris Johnson.

So a campaign that promised voters a restoration of sovereignty has ended up in a Brexit negotiation where Brussels gets to choose the British government. Brilliant.

Welcome to the T-charge

Sadiq Khan deserves congratulations and support for introducing today the T-charge — a £10 supplement on the congestion charge that owners of older, polluting diesel and petrol cars have to pay.

Like the original C- charge, it is regressive — falling hardest on poorer car-owners. But it is those on the lowest incomes who suffer the greatest health problems.

Mr Khan should be doing more to expand the area where the charge applies (as he says he will). Dirty air kills. We can eliminate it.

The Mayor has taken a big step forward today.

Let him keep walking in the right direction.