23 Jan 2019

Elimination Game. By this time next week, the set of Brexit options should be sharply narrowed

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Theresa May returned to the House of Commons on Monday and offered MPs the prospect of more of the same. That message was softened up, admittedly, by her surprise decision to abolish the £65 charge that EU citizens were to be charged to complete the paperwork necessary to stay in the UK. A ‘neutral motion’ setting out what she intended to do was released alongside her statement. It is this that will now take centre stage next Tuesday when MPs have the opportunity to amend it.

The Prime Minister has, in effect, acquired what is now just under a week to see if her Plan A can be rebranded as a Plan A+ and win enough support to reverse the absolutely massive defeat that she suffered in the division lobbies eight days ago. If not, then any MP can submit an amendment to her motion and, if it is selected by the Speaker and approved by a majority, then it offers a political direction to the Government to respond to it.

This is not the same as a legal requirement – only statute can reverse a statute – but in the unlikely event that the Prime Minister could convince her colleagues to ignore it, the entire incumbent administration would risk the House of Commons taking matters further and, with the assistance of a manifestly willing Speaker, take back control over the parliamentary rules, notable Standing Order 14 (1) which determines who can impose what on Westminster’s timetable.

That would really be taking us in to interesting territory. It would not, to be historically accurate, be entirely new terrain. The dominance of ministers over the schedule does not stretch back centuries. It acquired its near monopoly at the outset of World War II when all sides agreed it would be necessary to allow the Government extraordinary command over Parliament. The assumption then was that matters would revert to what had been the old norm once the conflict was over.

The Attlee Government, however, saw advantages in retaining the new system to push through its programme with minimal opportunity for obstruction by its opponents. It had a massive number of Labour MPs (most of whom were completely new to Westminster) who were willing to curtail their own rights to assist the cause of establishing the NHS and multiple acts of nationalisation. So the rulebook was not switched back as had been the implicit promise. Winston Churchill denounced this as “totalitarian”, a word that his successor as Prime Minister is likely to be reminded of if the rules are changed now.

That probably will not happen instantaneously, although matters could move extremely quickly. It is more likely that by this time next week, three very important questions will have been answered.

Is there a majority that can be constructed for Mrs May’s Plan A+?

The Prime Minister’s preference is to retain as much of Plan A as possible while finding additional assurances of a legal or quasi-legal form that could influence the Democratic Unionist Party. As BVCA Insight has noted on numerous occasions, if the DUP ‘domino’ does not fall then the chances of large numbers of pro-Brexit mainland Conservative MPs (by far the biggest ‘domino’ in play here) moving are very slim.

Mrs May has six days in which to convince the EU-27 (particularly Ireland) to offer something that would allow her to argue that the Withdrawal Agreement will not lead either to Northern Ireland finding itself compelled to operate on a different economic basis with the EU than the rest of the UK, or that the whole of the UK would not be trapped inside the ‘backstop’ forever.

On the face of it, the notion that Mrs May might succeed here lies somewhere between the highly optimistic and the clinically insane. There is no evidence that Brussels, Dublin or Berlin (the three critical constituencies on this matter) are prepared to either abandon the backstop entirely or render it less than watertight by allowing a de facto expiry date or a de facto exit clause. Nor does it seem as if London has come forward with another approach with can widen the options available to it beyond the current mid-2020 binary choice of extending the transition or entering the backstop. The one factor that prevents this option being dismissed completely is the following. It would not take much of a move from the EU-27 to create the incentive for the DUP and the ERG (European Research Group of Conservative MPs) to fold their cards and settle. The DUP is enduring fierce criticism from within its own electorate in Northern Ireland over its opposition to Mrs May’s deal and the ERG is nervous that Article 50 will be extended if the impasse is not ended. So, Mrs May’s last hope for Plan A+ is to persuade the EU to make a minor but legally binding move.

How many MPs are really willing to back a second referendum?

Even if Mrs May could pull off the above, there is still every prospect that an amendment calling for a second referendum will be made and the Speaker will select it. There is also a respectable chance that for reasons of internal party politics, Jeremy Corbyn might allow his MPs a free vote on it and could even (in a move of staggering hypocrisy) vote for it himself while not making any true effort to convince others to follow him in doing so. While almost all of the smaller parties in the House and more than 100 Labour MPs would back a second referendum, it is highly unlikely that it will pass. The number of Conservative advocates of a new ballot remains small (probably no more than 15) and there is a substantial bloc of Labour MPs who, either because they personally favour leaving the EU, or their constituencies backed leaving by large margins, or because they fear that another vote would be a dangerous and divisive exercise to undertake, will not vote for another EU referendum. Once the notion of a second referendum is sunk, then its advocates will need to turn their attention elsewhere. They will have to think seriously about ‘Norway Plus’ as their own personal Plan B and even if they are not willing to make that switch at once, they will want to prevent a No Deal Brexit.

Is there a majority in the House of Commons for blocking No Deal and extending Article 50?

This is probably the most important question that MPs will face next week if Mrs May’s Plan A+ dies. An amendment, championed by Yvette Cooper, the former Labour Cabinet minister and now the Chair of the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, along with Nicky Morgan, once a Conservative Cabinet minister and now Chair of the House of Commons Treasury Committee, and Norman Lamb, a well-respected Liberal Democrat MP and a minister during the coalition, rejects a No Deal outcome outright and then asserts that if there is no Withdrawal Agreement with the EU by 26th February, then the Government should ask for an extension of Article 50 to avoid any No Deal.

It is a racing certainty that this amendment will be taken by the Speaker and it is highly likely to pass. Mrs May will move Heaven and Earth to try and avoid having this approach imposed on her. Yet in the absence of a credible blueprint of her own, she would be advised that if she seeks to whip her Conservative MPs to vote against it, then there will be mass ministerial resignations, including from the Cabinet, by MPs who want to endorse Cooper-Morgan-Lamb and so kill off a No Deal Brexit. Not only would she lose the vote, she would probably be deposed as Prime Minister. In such conditions, she would have no real choice beyond either allowing a free vote among Conservative MPs (which would torpedo a No Deal Brexit) or accepting the amendment into her own motion to avoid defeat.

Her one consolation is that this formula would allow her until 26th February to persuade the DUP and the ERG to reluctantly embrace whatever Plan A+ she can come up with (even if obviously similar to the Plan A they rejected so emphatically last week) and avoid an extension of Article 50. If not, then the odds are that Article 50 will indeed be extended until late July or the close of September, a new form of Withdrawal Agreement will be sought that is largely based on ‘Norway Plus’, and that a new Conservative Party leader and hence a new Prime Minister will be needed sooner rather than later.

Tim Hames
Director General, BVCA


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