Mork and Mindy. Theresa May’s latest Brexit strategy involves some very large risks

The atmosphere at Prime Ministers’ Questions earlier today was somewhat surreal. As Theresa May had declared the night before that she wanted to meet and reach agreement on a Brexit strategy with Jeremy Corbyn, and with the Leader of the Opposition, in turn, having accepted the invitation, the two of them were obliged to behave with a little more civility and courtesy towards each other across the dispatch boxes than would be the norm in ordinary circumstances. It was less a case of Punch and Judy than Mork and Mindy (readers under 50 might need to Google that last reference).
In a tale of extraordinary twists and turns the latest developments are astonishing. The Cabinet met for some seven hours yesterday. It was divided between those who wanted an immediate no-deal, others who favoured a short extension of Article 50 in order to achieve a deal, those who thought that a longer extension of Article 50 would be needed to achieve a radically different deal, and those who preferred a long extension in order to obtain a ‘managed no-deal’.
When the debate stopped, said Cabinet members were more or less confined to 10 Downing Street without access to their mobile phones so that the Prime Minister could announce a consensus decision without it leaking. This does not suggest an atmosphere of collegiality, never mind mutual trust inside the Government.
The latest Brexit strategy (and BVCA Insight has long ago lost count of them) is as follows. First, the Prime Minister would seek talks with Mr Corbyn to see if they could reach agreement on a deal that would include the Withdrawal Agreement, but have other elements involved too which could be supported in the House of Commons before the ad hoc EU Council due for next Wednesday. The aim would be to ensure that Brexit takes place on 22 May and so halt UK participation in the European Parliament elections.
Second, that if no cross-party compromise was sealed, the House of Commons would hold another round of voting on options (presumably including the Withdrawal Agreement). Third, that ministers would respect whatever ultimate decision the House made but wanted such a decision done asap. Barely had her address been delivered that much of the Conservative Party was up in arms about it. So, how is this approach to Brexit likely to function in practice then?
A May-Corbyn pact is unlikely, bar one aspect that she cannot unilaterally deliver
It is not difficult to envisage what Mrs May might put on the table. She will offer to beef up her past commitments on workers’ rights and environmental protection post-Brexit, to provide new powers for Parliament in the next stage of the Brexit deliberations as to the ‘end state’ and, at a stretch, float the concept of a comprehensive customs partnership with the EU which will be similar to, but somehow different from, membership of the existing Customs Union (Lord knows what this may be).
In truth, this is offering the Labour leadership an awful lot of what it has said that it wants. This does not mean that Mr Corbyn will reciprocate in kind. First, he does not desire joint-ownership of Brexit. By contrast, he wants it to be a wholly-owned Conservative Party entity. The incentives for him to take up free shares in Brexit are modest to put it mildly.
Second, co-operating with the Conservatives is hardly second nature to him and he will be wary of the charge of ‘betrayal’ from his core activists. Finally, he knows that he has a large number of MPs and members who desperately want to remain in the EU and are making a huge amount of noise in favour of a second referendum.
The easy life option for him would be to insist that any agreement that the House of Commons might make now would be subject to a popular vote, an assertion he could offer in the full knowledge that the Prime Minister would reject it forthrightly and that would be that in terms of a cross-party understanding.
The one other card which she could play, which would really tempt him to collaborate, would be a public side-agreement that there would be an election at some point in this calendar year. Yet she is not in a position to suggest this solution unilaterally as she will not be leading the Conservatives into such an election. At a minimum, she would need wholesale Cabinet backing for such a plan and even this will be undermined if the contenders for the succession who are outside of the Cabinet (such as Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab) refuse to be bound by such an undertaking. Hence it is unlikely.
What is Mrs May really aiming for then?
The more realistic ambition that the Prime Minister must have is different. It is creating conditions for a ‘run-off’ vote to occur in the House of Commons early next week between her Withdrawal Agreement (with reassurances on workers’ rights and environment protection tacked on along with the additional authority for Parliament in the next round of negotiations with the EU) and whatever emerged as the most popular alternative option that the House of Commons considers (which looks like being the Customs Union provision that has been moved by Ken Clarke).
When faced with this either/or choice, the theory runs, the DUP, the remaining hold-out European Research Group set of Conservative MPs, and a few more Labour MPs in staunchly pro-Leave constituencies, would finally swap sides and the Withdrawal Agreement (new version) will pass at the fourth time of asking (the fifth if you include the fact that it was introduced last December and pulled before a vote was held).
By such means, the Prime Minister would obtain a mandate for what was basically her deal and thus a Brexit that was only moderately late (no worse than May 22) and after that could stand down from 10 Downing Street in May with a new figure taking her place in a dignified fashion come early July.
Will this work?
It might but there is plenty of room for scepticism about it. Three factors might scupper this scheme. The first is that there is no real allowance for the sort of ‘run-off’ in the procedure and rules of the House of Commons which the Prime Minister seems to have in mind. The UK House does ‘Yes v No’. It does not really do ‘A v B’. The closest the conventional process can get to A v B would be to have a motion (A) to which an amendment is moved (B). If B passes then it becomes A and is then subject to a further vote as to whether the House wants what was B but has now become A. If B fails, A does not automatically pass of itself but remains A and subject to a further vote which it could then lose. It is therefore entirely possible that neither A nor B would win a majority (likely on current form).
The second is that even if the procedures of the House might be bent to allow for a true run-off (and if a majority exists for such sorcery then it could be made to transpire), why should the latest tweak on the Withdrawal Agreement be ensured a place in the final two options for any run-off? If it does not have such a guaranteed right, it might not make the run-off in which case a strategy of spooking the DUP, the remainder of the ERG and some Labour MPs in heavily pro-Leave seats falls on its face.
Finally, let us charitably conclude that it is possible to have a pure run off and that this completely binary choice involves the Withdrawal Agreement (latest version) and the Customs Union proposal which has come closest to acquiring majority approval in the House of Commons so far. The DUP could decide that it dislikes the Customs Union less than the Irish Backstop. Hard-line ERG MPs may still refuse to budge. Labour MPs in pro-Leave places might not shift either. What could be seen is movement in the other direction as Conservative MPs (such as Mr Clarke himself), who had voted for the Withdrawal Agreement but also support the Customs Union idea, back the latter in a run-off. In which case, the House will back the Customs Union, the Government will have committed itself in advance to taking that outcome to the EU Council next week, and the Conservative Party will go nuts.
Tim Hames
Director General, BVCA