ABHI Brexit Update: A Cornish Brexit
As many of you know, whilst I am not a native, I have been coming home to Cornwall since 1983. We have a word down here, the definition of which you can find in Hansard. The late, and still much lamented MP, David Penhaligon, once used it in a debate on the tardiness of the nation’s trains. The word is “D’reckly.” If someone says they will be with you d’reckly or they will do something for you d’reckly, they will definitely appear, or the job will definitely get done. However, it is probably best not to wait in or cancel any existing plans. The timelines might slip a bit. In fact, they may extend to a period that would not, ordinarily, be deemed acceptable in other parts of the world. But hey, we have found a better way to live down here. My little village, almost at the end of England, has a butcher, baker, greengrocer and three fishmongers. It is also a place where you need not be thirsty for too long.
And so, it is the 1st November and we are still members of the European Union. As far as I am aware, and happily as I would not wish actual harm on anyone, the Prime Minister is not dead in a ditch somewhere. He is doing Brexit d’reckly.
And those coins I told you about, they only went and minted them. So, they are now being recycled, but undeterred, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs are going to get a new one done. I suppose it’s good news for the people of Pontyclun looking for some overtime ahead of the festive season. But for the rest of us it is another avoidable cost for the Brexit bill, alongside all those other festivities that accompanied an utterly pointless Queen’s speech.
The new drop-dead date is 31st January and the nextension is a flextension, meaning that if a withdrawal agreement can be ratified by the UK and European Parliaments in time, we could still enter a transition / implementation phase on 1st January. Hold that thought.
It was an exciting enough start to the week, all things considered. On Monday evening the Government failed for the third time to force an early election under the terms of the Fixed Parliament Act. Labour, the LibDems, the DUP and the SNP all made noises about wanting to take no deal off the table, they did not trust the Government and that it was a bad deal anyway. As is his wont, Boris decided that, as the existing law did not suit his needs, he would make a new one, thus bypassing the Act. By the time the Early Parliamentary General Election Bill 2019, facilitating an election on 12th December, had been tabled the next day, it was all academic. By then the EU had granted the nextension and Boris had been obliged by one of those pesky laws to accept, but even then he could not resist saying it was unnecessary. Corbyn was happy that a no deal was effectively off the table and the others, having said they were happy to support an election in the right circumstances, were not really left with much choice. There was a late flurry of activity which lit up social media (my least favourite oxymoron). The admirable Stella Creasy succeeded in making the Bill subject to amendments from all and sundry, not just the Government itself, and some interesting options appeared to appear. An amendment was tabled to allow 16 and 17 year olds to vote, another would have given the same right to EU nationals with settled status, and another proposed postponing the election until 7th May 2020 after a second referendum. The Government got the willies and said that they would pull the Bill if motions to extend the franchise were passed. Dominic Cummins even said he thought that there would not be an election because MPs would vote for votes for our friends from the EU. It makes you wonder just how astute he actually is, when any number of commentators and constitutional experts were saying that the franchise amendments were visibly so far beyond the scope of the Bill, that they had no chance of being selected by the Speaker.
In the end, they duly disappeared and three were chosen, the only one of any interest whatsoever being to have the election brought forward to the 9th December. This, argued Labour, would prevent any last-ditch attempt by the PM to get his deal through before an election, and also allow full representation from our burgeoning student body at the polls. I do not think Jeremy was that bothered, thinking more about the prospect of an extra, cheeky Bank Holiday, and it was defeated anyway. So, the starting pistol for a 12th December election was fired and the blame game started. Boris claimed that Parliament had delayed Brexit unnecessarily, whilst Parliament pointed out that it was Boris who had withdrawn his own Withdrawal Bill after Parliament had agreed to back it. The election campaign had begun in earnest.
Supporting an election is a huge gamble by opposition Parties, probably more than it is for the Conservatives who are ahead in the polls. There, I said it. Some have argued that a new Parliament is needed to break the deadlock on Brexit, but I have always maintained that an election is not the vehicle to address this. But what would a new Parliament look like? At my last count, 51 MPs have said they are retiring / standing down, and 31 of them are remain supporters in leave constituencies. Any new Tory MPs will be ultra – loyal Johnsonistas, or whatever the term is. If Boris gets a majority, then we could be heading for a very hard and very fast Brexit. Whatever he says now about having a Withdrawal Agreement in place, if he comes back to school on 14th December with a working majority, there will be a temptation, and I will not venture how much of a temptation, but a temptation nonetheless, to redesign Brexit along the lines of what the committed leavers thought they were getting. If you are up to your eyes in contingency planning and took a huge sigh of relief at the prospect of breathing space until the end of January, your BX free Christmas may not be completely nailed on. Even if he does stick to the existing agreement, another temptation will be to force it through immediately. Imagine the appeal for the swivel eyes of leaving the EU on New Year’s Eve?
But I am getting all previous and there is no guarantee that Boris will even be able to get the chance to do Brexit himself. Two of the last three elections have been inconclusive, one producing a coalition, one producing a minority government and both creating an unholy mess. The Scottish Nationalists will almost certainly make ground over the Conservatives, as will the Lib Dems. We could head into peak Christmas Party season, slide rulers at the ready to decide what a colourful coalition might consist of. That also gets us in to second referendum / revocation territory. It may not have been the first of these in which I wrote that the only certainty is uncertainty, but it was one of them. If this turns out, as it may well, to be one of the last, then it might not be a bad phrase to end on.
Whatever, our civil servants are now heading into purdah, and everything is becoming very Party Political, so it is time for a pause. I will leave you with the honour of being the first group to see ABHI’s own Manifesto, which I am delighted to launch in this blog.
I am sorry I have not really been able to provide you with anything of much actual substance over these past few years, but I am genuinely humbled that so many have told me that 4 O’clock on a Friday is time for you to make a last cup of tea and see what rubbish I have compiled. And, at least now, the next time you visit us down here in the Duchy, and you spy a bumper sticker proclaiming that “Cornishmen Do It D’reckly,” you will know what it means.
