Britain’s Brexit indecision is downright embarrassing

Oh no, this latest edition of my weekly newsletter for Reaction subscribers is going to have to be partly about Brexit. Apologies to those of you who have had enough of the whole business, on the basis that British politics appears trapped in a Groundhog Day loop of endless arguments about customs unions and second referendums which is enough to make you scream, whether you voted to leave the EU or not.

There is no escape, it seems. As I write this on a plane to Edinburgh to watch my team – Scotland – get beaten by England at rugby, the two people in the seats behind me are discussing Brexit and the potential implications for trade, training and capital allocation in their respective industries. Araaaaaaaaaagh!

There is plenty else to write about, I know. The slaughter in Syria shames the West. And in the US, something extraordinary seems to be happening after the horror of the latest school shootings. The campaign by brave survivors – children taking on the gun lobby – is getting somewhere, putting the National Rifle Association on the defensive. That organisation’s supremo said this week that gun rights were granted by God, although there is no mention of semi-automatics in the Bible. Being familiar with scripture he’ll have heard of David and Goliath. The NRA – which for decades has funnelled vast amounts of money to politicians to make its case – is Goliath. So was “big tobacco” once, before attitudes changed.

With children marching against lax gun laws, leading American brands this week started dropping their discounts offered to the NRA’s estimated five million members. The change in temperature demonstrates again that what is presumed to be fixed and unchangeable can be shifted in this age of disruption.

This development raises the wider question of what comes next in American politics. Pundits and politicians were too slow to spot the surge of blue collar discontent that powered Trump to the presidency. The rules had changed. They could change again in the direction of empathy, if American high school pupils and young adults continue to organise, and if those American women and mothers who do not own or use guns join them in pushing for change.

The historian Professor Niall Ferguson says I’m wrong about this. More division and anger is the likeliest outcome, he says. Perhaps that is logically what follows Trumpism, but something else could be happening.

People are exhausted. Anger is corrosive and wearying. Of course, America will remain a violent society, with pioneer roots, and guns will not go away. But perhaps out of this horror there is the chance of some change, and a gap in the market for an American politician offering hope, healing and some unity. It wouldn’t take much. Four or five million votes in the right states – from the weary and disengaged, and from mothers who have had enough of high school massacres – could bend the arc of history. We’ll see.

Back to Brexit, and sorry about that. I have read all of the various accounts of what happened at Chequers on Friday, and canvassed opinion. “It could have been a lot worse” is the general vibe, as there was agreement that the UK would enter the next round of talks seeking Ambitious Managed Divergence. Jim Pickard of the FT wondered on Twitter whether the words should not be reordered to read Managed Ambitious Divergence. MAD.

What does this mean? The UK will be out of the Single Market and EU Customs Union, but will seek to sign a free trade deal and stay aligned with EU regulations and standards until in certain agreed areas it diverges. The Brexit Secretary David Davis has been shuttling about the EU, his friends point out, because the Foreign Secretary cannot be trusted to do diplomacy, a remarkable state of affairs. The Davis speech last week in Austria was the clearest explanation yet of the outline proposed British compromise.

The EU dismisses this plan as “fantasy” and points out that until now Britain has been negotiating with itself. It is not just that the EU dismisses the British position. When it comes to Brexit it always dismisses the British position. But even on a more generous reading of the UK opening stance going into round two of negotiations with the EU27, a divided government is putting a lot of faith in fudge being sufficient.

One of the weirdest aspects of the Chequers country house mystery summit is that Northern Ireland and its border with Ireland seem to have been hardly discussed. With a year to go until the UK leaves the EU, and 20 months since the referendum campaign, the government is still relying on vague assurances that “new technology” will sort it.

By now, the government should be able – in partnership with Dublin – to point to an outline plan containing precise measures. A solution will, in the end, require the EU to accept that this is an unusual border, over which blood has been shed and could be again, but to encourage the EU to have the confidence to move a little surely requires the British to show first that they take it seriously and have a concrete plan – involving no new concrete that could be blown up by dissident Irish Republicans. The Conservative party is Unionist, supposedly, and should be much further advanced in offering reassurance and a plan.

On this and much else there is still too much reliance on magical thinking, when the crunch is approaching and talks are just weeks away. In the vacuum, Tory Remainer rebels sense that they can defeat the government by winning a Commons vote insisting the UK stay in a Customs Union, and possibly amending Brexit customs legislation. Labour is expected to shift its position in that direction next week and as many as ten Tory rebels seem to be lined up.

It then becomes a Commons numbers game, with a handful of Brexiteer rebels on the Labour side determined to vote against a call for a Customs Union with the EU. This is high stakes stuff, and the coming weeks will be dominated by this looming drama.

The Prime Minister will then have to decide (which she is not good at doing) whether to make this a question of confidence, telling Tory rebels that if they vote for a Customs Union they will be voting down the government, leading to an election. Although first, of course, there would have to be a vote passed getting round the fixed term parliament act, which says the next election will be in 2022. So who knows. No-one, if truth be told. It is a mess.

I have listened to several Tory ministers tell me of late that this mess – this “constructive ambiguity” – is actually all very clever, keeping the EU guessing until they fold in a panic. I’m not buying that, indeed as a British person – who voted for Brexit – I find it nationally embarrassing and borderline humiliating, especially when the EU has problems of its own, such as the Italian elections and Germany in crisis. If we seek to be constructive partners and friendly neighbours we have a responsibility to behave like serious players, not a ramshackle shower, and have a plan.

Call me old-fashioned (“you’re old-fashioned”) but the May approach such as it is remains a deeply strange way for the leader of an allegedly grown up country such as Britain to behave. On Friday the Prime Minister is expected to make a speech outlining what the government proposes. It had better be good. I am not holding my breath.