ABHI Brexit Update: The Great British Conundrum
I was never really sure where Sharm El Sheikh actually was. To me it was only ever an exotic sounding location, spied, enviously, on a departure board at some regional airport or another. Invariably it would be five o’clock in the morning and I would already be wearing a suit. All around me, everyone else it seemed, were dressed in shorts and sombreros and were washing down their bacon and eggs with pints of Stella. It did not improve my, admittedly, somewhat brittle mood then, to see Laura Kuenssberg staring at me from in front of a swimming pool at the weekend. Dressed in shirt sleeve order, the BBC’s political terrier was telling me how surreal it was to be in a swanky Red Sea resort talking about Brexit. And why, may I ask, was she in a swanky Red Sea resort, at my expense as a license payer, stalking the PM and asking the same, small handful of inane questions she has been peddling for the past two years? It is not as if I make a beeline for the central lobby or lurk outside the Cabinet Office to write these for you. Last week’s missive, for example, was penned in the lounge of the Two Bridges on Dartmoor.
Mrs. May was in Egypt for an EU / Arab States Summit, at which she took the opportunity for (yet more) talks around the fringes with fellow leaders. Kuenssberg was there just to annoy me. In the end, both had little joy. EU27 leaders were not for giving anything away until the PM can demonstrate she can win a vote for presents for kids at Christmas, and Kuenssberg got the standard responses drafted in the Downing Street bunker about 18 months ago.
Of more interest was what has been happening here within the main political parties. Jeremy Corbyn has finally climbed down from the fence and has come out supporting a second referendum. Actually, it has been Party policy for a while to take this route if they were unable to force a General Election. The clincher this week was the failure of the Labour Party to get through an amendment supporting its own Brexit arrangements, which involve staying in the customs union. Once that had, not unexpectedly, happened, as Corbyn had confirmed at the weekend, Labour’s stance was to support the so-called People’s Vote. It will be instructive to see how it plays out in the Parliamentary Party. Many of the newer guard see a vacuum in leadership at the top of their own Party and a weak and wobbly government opposite. They are beginning to fantasise that high office could be coming their way sooner than they might have imagined. Many of them are also from ‘Leave voting’ Northern and Midland constituencies. Why risk it all with something as inconvenient as deselection for following their consciences. Heaven forbid I am suggesting that personal ambition is being placed ahead of the needs of the country. It remains one of the conundrums of all this that those who are in charge of us leaving would rather we stayed, and those who could help us stay feel hidebound to make sure we leave. If the criticism that the PM is simply running down the clock is fair, then Labour have been equally culpable in taking things to the wire with their laisser-faire, ‘something is bound to happen soon’ approach. We will see in the fullness, but the Party is deeply fractured.
So too is the Conservative Party. This week, following what was reported to be a fractious Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the PM made, get this, concessions. Not that you would think so by listening to her. As a teenager, I was a big fan of the US TV series “Happy Days.” I remember one episode in which our hero, permanently cool, “The Fonz,” proved himself to be habitually incapable of saying the word “sorry.” I think the PM has a similar affliction when it comes to admitting she has changed course. “We will leave with a deal on 29th March,” “We can make a success of no deal,” “An extension to Article 50 does not mean that we will not leave without a deal.” But, probably to avoid further damaging defeats on Wednesday, she had agreed that MPs would be given a meaningful vote on her deal on March 12th and, if it was rejected, then they could vote on leaving with no deal or extending Article 50 the next day. If the latter was agreed there would then be a debate and vote on the length of any extension. Given that she has insisted ad nauseam we will leave on the 29th March whatever, it sounds like a compromise to me. Maybe she is, as has been suggested by some wags, actually a Russian bot, but if she really does believe that no deal is an option, she is probably the only person in the Western Hemisphere that does. But no need to fall out over semantics, and what she is certainly doing is removing herself from any part of a decision that goes against the plan to which she has nailed herself. “The leprechauns made me do it,” a likely defence if and when that plan falls apart. She also proved me wrong again when I suggested last time that this might be the week in which something pivotal happens. That is now, of course, mid-March. I remember a year or so ago speculating that the EU summit meetings taking place in the Summer of 2018 might not prove to be as crucial as trailed, and suggesting that December was a more likely inflexion point, possibly even into this year. But I never imagined that the March gathering, days before our scheduled departure, would be the key date.
In the end, the amendment she was hoping to avoid being defeated on, was tabled anyway. It came from FLL and was comedy gold. Not wanting to take the PM at her word, FLL basically incorporated those words into an amendment, which was duly called for a vote. This had the effect of forcing the PM to vote with the opposition. Well, she could hardly vote against something she had announced herself the previous day. One highly amused Labour MP apparently asked Mrs. May to sign a bottle of wine whilst she was in their lobby as a souvenir.
Now it is all about the numbers. The PM remains confident that she can get her deal through Parliament, thus facilitating an orderly exit on 29th March. That is dependent on what, as I tried to explain last week, the Attorney General, Geoffrey Cox, comes back from Brussels with. The word is that all he has to do is get the DUP onside, if they are, then it is believed that a large number of potential Tory rebels, including that nice crowd in the European Research Group, will also back the deal. Assuming the deal is passed, Labour will still be pushing for a second referendum, asking the country to approve what is on the table or elect to remain. A second referendum would also necessitate a delay of Article 50 and probably mean we would need to elect a new cohort of MEPs.
And so, it goes on, with nothing but more uncertainty to report, more counting the cost of preparedness planning (make sure you follow the latest on our Brexit page) and more personal worries about the future. We are even agonising over booking an early summer break by the Med. I am not sure why, just caught up in it like everyone else I suppose.
And then life produces something that puts everything else in perspective. In the early hours of Monday morning, about 30 yards from my home in Newlyn, the historic Fisherman’s Arms was ravaged by a devastatingly destructive fire. Those of you who know me well, will know that my beloved “Fish” has been a place of solace and sanctuary for me during the darker moments of my life for the majority of the past 20 years. It has also provided the backdrop to the happiest. It is where we celebrated our marriage and my 50th birthday. It is where little Zelah-Marie and I spent hours “bonding,” whilst her mother was busy writing up a PhD thesis. As I write I see a picture of the three of us in there celebrating our baby’s first Christmas in 2009. I am deeply saddened that I have almost certainly lost one of my most treasured possessions, a tankard engraved with “Daddy at The Fish,” a memento from another, later Christmas Day. But what is my loss and sadness compared with that of a family whose hopes and lifelong dreams of owning a Pub now lie, literally, shattered and scorched in a Cornish harbor. Somewhat miraculously and much to the relief of one and all, Landlady Sally, husband David and their two, young sons suffered only the mild effects of smoke inhalation, although the family pets appear to have succumbed. These people will not be worrying about Brexit in the days and weeks ahead, they will be trying to restore lives and livelihoods. For the rest of us in our small, close-knit, slightly crazy and somewhat anarchic community, we can only hope that the part of us that has just been ripped out, can soon return to something close to what it once was. There is probably an analogy there somewhere, but, right now, I do not have the stomach to draw it.
