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Courtesy of the Times.
It was always going to be the case that the negotiations at Westminster would be tougher for the prime minister than the haggling in Brussels. Although the European Union is striking a hard bargain — as it was bound to do — it is broadly united, consistent and acting rationally to protect its interests. The same cannot be said of the United Kingdom, where ideology is being put before pragmatism and party concerns placed above the national interest. The Brexit talks are on a knife-edge before what was to have been a “moment of truth” summit this week because, for entirely domestic reasons, Theresa May has no room to compromise. One cabinet minister describes the “tiny airstrip just a few metres wide” on to which it would be possible to land a deal with the EU, but the prime minister’s co-pilots will not let her adjust course by even a few degrees in order to get the plane to the safe spot.
At least three Brexiteer cabinet ministers are threatening to resign in protest at plans to effectively keep the country in a customs union, while the Democratic Unionist Party is warning that it will withdraw its support from the government if the prime minister agrees to a situation that could mean Northern Ireland staying in a version of the EU single market. Its leader Arlene Foster has now said that she believes a no-deal Brexit to be the most likely outcome of the talks. Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader, has also made clear that she would strongly oppose any solution that gave special status to Northern Ireland, since that could strengthen the case for another referendum on Scottish independence and hasten the break-up of the UK. If Mrs May tries to pivot towards the Tory Eurosceptics to protect her position in No 10 she will lose the support of her cabinet pro-Europeans. Meanwhile, Labour is like the air traffic controller sending out mixed messages that risk sending the aircraft crashing to the ground.
Mrs May might get through today’s cabinet meeting by keeping the plane circling in the air for a bit longer before specifying her landing spot, but she cannot stay in the holding pattern for ever. In her Commons statement she was deliberately vague about the terms of the so-called backstop but she will have to offer clarity soon. “Her strategy has failed,” says one senior Tory MP. “We are between a rock and a hard place and she will crash into one side or the other. We are approaching the final act of the Tory party. Europe is the disease which has destroyed the last four Tory prime ministers and it’s about to destroy this one too.”
A minister compares the Conservative leader to a chess player with only a king left on the board, who is powerless but still hanging on. “She’s in a situation where every move she makes worsens the national predicament. We still basically have no agreed government position — it’s absurd. If you were playing computer chess the only way out of this would be to press the reset button.”
Another minister says that with the hard-Brexit European Research Group flexing its muscles “the Conservative Party has taken leave of its senses and the party of pragmatism is being driven by the ideologues. The country is being held hostage by petty politicians pushing their own fortunes.”
President Macron of France said recently that the rest of the EU faced a version of the “prisoner’s dilemma”, the game theory concept in which two parties acting in their own selfish interests refuse to co-operate and so ultimately lose out. “Everyone can have an interest in negotiating on their own and think they can negotiate better than their neighbour,” he said, but by doing that “it is probable that collectively we will create a situation which is unfavourable to the European Union and thus to each of us”. So far at least the other 27 countries have acted together for the greater good, but in the divided UK the political tribes are operating in their narrow self-interest in a way that could end up producing the outcome they least want.