22 November 2018

Brexit Conspiracy 

Far-fetched or not?

By Lynda Goetz 

Well, this has been a long and extraordinary week in politics.  Whichever side you are on it seems that few were keen on the Prime Minister’s Withdrawal Agreement.  Yet,  in some bizarre way, as the days have gone by Theresa May’s position seems increasingly secure, at least for a while yet, and the deal which has been described by both Leavers and Remainers as ‘a capitulation’, ‘a humiliation’ and ‘the worst of all possible worlds’ looks likely to be put before the House.  What will happen then?

I think I have mentioned before on these pages my admiration for the ‘no-nonsense’ opinions of writer and Telegraph columnist, Allison Pearson (my only disagreement with her is over her (widely-shared) lack of understanding regarding veterinary bills, but that is another story).  Apart from calling for May’s immediate resignation in an article last week (wishful thinking, I fear), in Wednesday’s Telegraph she wrote a controversial article with which I agree wholeheartedly. Even though, like the columnist herself, I am normally incredibly sceptical about conspiracy theories, somehow in the matter of Brexit, the idea of an Establishment conspiracy has, over the last week, become increasingly plausible.

The whimpering death in the last few days of almost all serious protests within the Tory party against the Prime Minister, in spite of the hostility to her deal from both Brexiteers and Remainers, suggests that pressure is being applied to those who considered resigning or those who wanted to submit letters of ‘no confidence’.  The disdain displayed in official briefings, by other MPs and by the BBC for the two principled high-profile Ministers, Dominic Raab and Esther McVey, who resigned over their objections (including the fact that the agreement contained clauses that had been inserted without Mr Raab’s knowledge), suggests a concerted and renewed ‘Project Fear’.  Denounced as self-serving, ambitious traitors who wish to put themselves up for leadership by some or as treacherous mutineers who should, at this difficult time, be stepping up to support that resilient, altruistic, honourable lady who is our Prime Minister by others, these were, somewhat surprisingly, the only two high profile resignations.  Michael Gove and Liam Fox seem to prefer power at any price, even though Mr Gove did draw the line at the poisoned chalice of (impotent) Brexit Secretary; a post subsequently filled by unknown, Stephen Barclay, MP for North-East Cambridgeshire.  He will however be in charge only of ‘domestic preparations’, whatever that means.

Resignation in some circumstances (e.g that of David Cameron) is a ‘cop-out’.  In others, it is a principled stand where you have to take ultimate responsibility for a mistake or cannot in all conscience support those who are leading in a direction you cannot follow.  The latter is the case for Cabinet Ministers Raab and McVey and, before them, David Davis and Boris Johnson (irrespective of any leadership ambitions all or any of them may be harbouring), not to mention all those other lesser-known MPs who have also resigned over the issue.*  William Hague, himself a staunch Remainer, has in his writings been urging Ministers to continue supporting the Prime Minister – effectively for ‘fear of worse’.

Those who were supposed to have been sending in their letters of ‘no confidence’ seem to have melted away.   What consequences were pointed out to those who were undecided or had not quite got around to it?  Well, there is of course, as Nigel Farage made clear, the fact that you jeopardise your future seat in the House of Lords, but there are other more general dire postulations.  According to William Hague, in his article in The Telegraph, a vote of no-confidence would lead almost inevitably to a new Prime Minister having to argue for a ‘no-deal’ (having run out of time); this resulting in massive resignations; the Labour Party tabling a motion, for example, to stay permanently in the Customs Union, leaving the new PM with 1) going ahead with an even weaker deal than Mrs May’s; 2) resigning or 3) defying Parliament and attempting to go ahead with a no deal.  According to Mr Hague, the first would make us a laughing stock (I think we already are) and the second and third would trigger a general election and probably a second referendum.

Rumours abound that a second referendum would, like the first, contain two options.  In this case however, the options would be to go with something akin to the present Withdrawal Agreement (or softer) or to ‘stay’ in the EU.  The third option of ‘no deal’ would not and some are saying ‘should not’ be offered.  If that doesn’t smack of an Establishment conspiracy, nothing does. Those of us who voted to leave did not, in spite of the patronising comments of Remainers, do so in total ignorance of what we were doing.  We did so, knowing that, after 40-odd years increasingly tied in to European legislation, it would not be easy; we did so to return to a situation where our own Parliament was in charge of our own laws, in other words to regain sovereignty and to avoid the tentacles of ‘ever closer integration’. And we did so because after years of being ignored and bullied by the bureaucrats of the EU it had become abundantly clear that what we had joined back in 1973 and voted to stay in in 1975, was not what we belonged to now and that ‘having a seat at the table’ made no difference – our voice was being drowned out.

The notion that we could now somehow vote to ‘stay’ in the EU is surely fanciful?  Having triggered Article 50 we have set in motion the events leading to a withdrawal, although constitutional experts are divided about whether that process is reversible. Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, the Scottish cross-bench peer and former diplomat who originally drafted Article 50, believes it is, but there is no consensus on this (or of course much else).  It is highly likely that a ‘return to the fold’ would cost us in terms of having to relinquish rebates and concede to a number of other demands (e.g. fishing rights) in order to be allowed back in. Those complications are probably not going to be made clear in a further referendum where ‘the man on the Clapham omnibus’ is unlikely to be given credit for understanding the implications.  The vote we are likely to be given if this happens will, once again, be simplistic; this time not Leave or Remain, but leave on highly unsatisfactory terms which appeal to almost no-one or pretend that none of this nightmare ever happened and ‘stay’ (albeit almost certainly under new conditions).

The fact that we have a Prime Minister who, in spite of her many admirable qualities, appears to lack vision and is, crucially, a Remainer who never really wanted to leave the EU, but is attempting to ‘deliver Brexit’ (or some form of it at least) out of a sense of duty, does explain to a large extent the lack of true conviction she has displayed for rather a long time.  Ever since the Lancaster House speech, (written largely by Nick Timothy) her commitment to Brexit seems to have become increasingly watered-down. Her Brexit negotiator, civil servant, Olly Robbins has a reputation for a formidable intellect and the ability to deal with complex detail; on the downside however he is not, according to Lord Kerr, an experienced international negotiator.  Mrs May’s famous stubbornness is hardly a fantastic negotiating technique either, but are things in fact worse than that?  M. Barnier’s statement this week that it was Mrs May’s request that the U.K stay in a custom’s union seems to throw all previous assumptions to the winds.  Has Mrs May really been playing another game all along? Are we now to believe, that it really is this deal or no Brexit at all? If so, how on earth did we get here and why?

Would ‘crashing out of the EU with no deal’ as trading on WTO terms is frequently referred to, really be such a disaster? Not according to an article by David Collins in The Spectator in August. Mark Carney,  on the other hand, chairman of the Bank of England and the Establishment personified (even if he is Canadian), says that  businesses are not prepared for a no-deal Brexit and that this could cause an economic blow the likes of which have not been seen since the oil crisis in the 1970s.  Well, possibly. Simon Wolfson, the CEO of Next said publicly in October that no deal will not be the economic Armageddon forecast (by the CBI for example). The CBI, as some have pointed out, backed Project Fear and also wanted us to join the Euro, so they can hardly claim ownership of an accurate crystal ball. At the end of last week,  a letter organised by Sir John Longworth, the former director of the British Chambers of Commerce and signed by over 200 chief executives and entrepreneurs, called on Conservative MPs to vote down Theresa May’s deal. The authors’ preferred alternative is to leave without a deal and use the World Trade Organisation’s ‘ready-made framework for cooperation’, conceding that whilst ‘there may be considerable short-term turbulence’, they believe the UK can make it through to a ‘prosperous future’.

Where then are our political visionaries with a belief in our prosperous future?  Where are those not foretelling Armageddon and those who are not fearful?  Well, some of them have resigned, but it remains to be seen if they can avoid being ground down and silenced by an Establishment which never imagined that Remain could lose and seems determined that one way or another it won’t.

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Suella Braverman, Shailesh Vara, Anne-Marie, Trevelyan Ranil, Jayawardena, Nikki Da Costa, Jo Johnson, Rehman Chishti. For information on their previous positions, see iNews Daily Briefing