Collapse of Cox’s codpiece clears way for an epic crisis in the Commons
Very few codpieces survive. There are a handful of metal versions on display in armoury collections, and a couple of velvet originals are stored at the cathedral in Uppsala in Sweden. Other than that, all material evidence of an item of clothing that was standard dress for men across Europe (in the 16th century) has vanished.
Where did the codpiece originate? It was a 15th century Germanic, Swiss and Italian invention rooted in showing off about war, an expansion and reinforcement of the flap of material men wore over their prototype tights to prevent social embarrassment. Backwards, and loutishly socially reprehensible as ever, the British were late to the party. But once we got the hang of it, no man in the 16th century could be seen without his codpiece. The bigger the codpiece the richer the man. The historian Victoria Bartels, a leading expert on dress codes of the period, says: “Ideas about masculinity were closely linked to notions of martial strength. The defensive codpiece was an integral part of the costume worn by German and Swiss mercenaries. On the battlefield, the armour codpiece was both protective and assertive.”
The concept of the defensive codpiece, protective and assertive, has in recent weeks been revived and invoked at Westminster as a virile symbol of British government policy while desperate ministers attempt to find an accommodation with the European Union that enables Britain to Brexit without the country being completely emasculated in the process. There had been much talk of the solidity of Cox’s codpiece – named after the Attorney General Geoffrey Cox. His codpiece was initially thought to be made of such robust material that it would save Brexit and the government of which Theresa May is still, just about, nominally in charge.
Cox took over the talks with the EU’s chief negotiator, silver smoothie Michel Barnier. Cox was tasked with offering satisfaction on the backstop, the hated (by most Brexiteers) provision that if no trade deal with the EU has been agreed then the UK falls into the EU’s customs territory with no right to quit.
Armed with a booming baritone – Brian Blessed playing Rumpole of the Bailey at the bar doing his best Winston Churchill impersonation – Cox was going to talk the EU into backing down on this.
Alas! Cox’s codpiece appears to be empty, or it has a hole in it.
This is unfortunate, to put it mildly. The lawyer Geoffrey Cox is one of the best things about this government. Although saying that he is one of the best things about this government, when the list is so short, sounds like fixing a low bar for a compliment, Cox is an old school character blessed with intelligence. He was the best hope of engineering a breakthrough.
Yet the Cox routine is not playing well in Brussels, it seems. Unless there is some magic moment of concession in the next few hours and days, in which the European Union negotiating team are instructed by the member states to retreat on the Northern Ireland backstop, then the Attorney General will have to return to Westminster soon to report that his attempts to sort it out have failed. He will have to say that he cannot adjust his previous legal advice, which was that the UK could be stuck in the sodding backstop arrangement until the end of all time.
None of this is a slight on the Attorney General, who has done his best late in proceedings to find a way through. This is the European Union and there is always the possibility that at the last minute, to avert a no deal smash, the EU agrees to offer the British something. That seems an unlikely prospect though.
The talks that took place last week between Cox and Barnier came close to being a complete disaster. Cox asked the EU to agree to the process of arbitration on the backstop being moderated so that “reasonableness” could be applied in assessing down the line whether the EU is negotiating fairly in trying to keep the UK in the backstop. Reasonableness! In the EU you can’t go round introducing something like “reasonableness” as a concept. The EU operates a strict, literal, logical Napoleonic code model. I don’t mean that as an an insult, just a statement of fact. British law is rooted in something different, the more flexible common law tradition.
The clash between Cox and Barnier this week, and the unbridgeable nature of the legal divide, is a pretty good metaphor for the entire sorry story of Britain’s membership of the EU, with the Brits thinking that it can be bent into shape and the EU baffled at British assumptions that everything can be fudged.
“Geoffrey’s a good lawyer turning up late to take over a case that has been badly messed up from the start,” says a gloomy MP who will be a key player in declaring whether the DUP and the ERG can vote for May’s deal.
The way this was supposed to have worked out by now was that a form of words, a legal reassurance from the EU of sufficient force, would have been produced and the DUP would flip to back the deal, cutting hardline Tory ERG opposition to twenty or so MPs in the process. Then twenty five to thirty Labour MPs would vote for the deal, on the basis they think Brexit should happen. And that way May would get her deal over the line, just, by a handful of votes, to push through the necessary legislation for Brexit by March 29 or soon after.
My view – as someone who dislikes the backstop but who wants to leave the EU as soon as possible and thinks compromise is involved in getting there – is that MPs should find a way for voting for a version of May’s deal or risk losing the lot. The biggest risk to Brexit is delay, during which public boredom could kill it entirely. But if Cox brings back nothing the deal simply won’t pass.
The Commons will vote on May’s deal on Tuesday and May is facing another heavy defeat. On the following days there will then be votes on ruling out no deal and on asking, begging, the EU for an extension of the Article 50 process. A slew of parliamentary amendments will be debated and voted on proposing assorted alternatives. Those MPs who believe in a Norway-style compromise will have a go at getting backing. The referendum rerun crowd will try too, although there is not a majority in the Common for that. Number 10 hopes to knock it all on a few weeks more in the hope that at the final juncture anti-deal Tory MPs vote for a deal. There is no sign of that happening. Time is up.
As it stands, only one move has the remotest chance of shifting the numbers in any meaningful way, that is if Theresa May announces an imminent date for her departure. Some of us have argued since the Tory party’s general election disaster in mid-2017 that it is unwise for the country to attempt such a difficult undertaking – leaving the EU – without a functioning Prime Minister.
But at this point it seems hard to believe that she will do announce her departure plan. This late would it make any difference? The May deal is stuffed, minus a concession the EU shows no sign of making. In the face of this, die hard Brexiteers bellow “hold firm”, not appreciating how determined anti-Brexit MPs are to find a way – with assistance of the Speaker of the Commons – to block no deal at any cost. In this way, the Commons seems set to beg the EU for an extension, which the EU will not want to be more than a few months in case the British have to take part in the European Parliament election, the equivalent of having a shouty, elderly relative to stay in the spare room for two years.
In this chaotic fashion we move into a week of the highest drama, during which the Tory MP and former “fixer” for David Cameron, Oliver Letwin MP, will attempt to take charge of the process via Commons votes in which MPs take over the running of the executive. Let us hope that his cunning plan turns out better than the time Letwin let a burglar into his house to take a pee.
Somehow, in under three weeks, Britain is supposed to leave the European Union. Think about that for a moment. More than two and a half years since British voters instructed the government to get the nation out of the European Union, there is still – for worried business and baffled voters – no clarity whatsoever about when or how that will happen. It is a ludicrous situation. If the situation were not so serious it would be funny.
As the full, martial codpiece began to go out of fashion, late 16th century men opted instead for the “peascod”, a more subtle, shrunken version of the codpiece. Men wanted to look more thoughtful and a little less warlike. Some men may have became confused, combining a codpiece, a peascod, and billowing breeches.
This led the poet Robert Hayman – born in Devon in 1575, educated at Oxford, a colonial governor of Newfoundland – to write his poem Two Filthy Fashions. For some reason it makes me think of the government’s handling of Brexit.
“Of all fond fashion, that were worne by Men.
These two (I hope) will ne’r be worne againe:
Great Codpist Doublets, and great Codpist britch,
At seuerall times worne both by meane and rich:
These two had beene, had they beene worn together,
Like two Fooles, pointing, mocking each the other.”
Like two fools, pointing, mocking each other. Quite.