What the hell happens now?

That’s what I get for deciding to wait for the full 48 letters to be lodged with the chairman of the backbench 1922 committee before finalising my weekly newsletter to Reaction subscribers. Apologies to subscribers for the delay – not in the delivery of the 48 letters, that’s nothing to do with me. Apologies instead for the slow delivery of my newsletter, caused by the situation getting by the hour more, not less, complicated. I will now do my best on your behalf to calmly make sense of where I think we are.

For this edition of the newsletter let’s go with the Q&A format, rather than an essay, in the interests of simplicity and (potential) clarity.

Will May face a leadership vote of confidence? 

Yep, it looks like it. At the time of writing, the Tory rebels are short despite weeks, months of briefing that they were almost there or need only snap their fingers to get well beyond the 48 letters they must have to trigger a vote of confidence on the Tory leader. They could announce at any moment that they have the numbers, and then a leadership vote among all Tory MPs would take place, within a day or two of an announcement.

Will May win a leadership vote of confidence?

Yes, it seems so. The unintentionally hilarious events of recent days, as the ERG tries to get 48 letters together, have illustrated why the “right” of the Tory party is hardly ever entrusted with running the Tory party. Margaret Thatcher shared some of the instincts and views of the right of her party, but she was far too canny to ever entrust it with full control or too much power. She appointed a wide range of different types of Conservative, including Michael Heseltine and Douglas Hurd.

The spectacle of the Tory right – in the form of the ERG – trying to bring down a Tory leader has not been a good advertisement for the Tory party being run on a narrow, one tradition basis. Broad is better, although surely the Tories will conclude that some of the most fanatical Tory Remainer MPs will have to go after all this is over.

How did the ERG make such a mess of it – so far?

It is important to remember that although there are highly intelligent people in the ERG, not all people in the ERG are highly intelligent. Without doubt, some of the more intellectually challenged members of the ultra-Brexit group have made wild claims about them having the 48 letters and May being done for. Moderate Tories don’t like the strutting around and violent language of the angriest ERG types. Jacob Rees-Mogg, leader of the ERG, is always polite, and his strategy until now has been “hold steady” on the basis that a deal of the kind that Theresa May now proposes will struggle to pass the Commons and the legislation then defaults to no deal, with limited opportunities for the Commons to halt it. For reasons he will have to explain in his memoirs, he shifted his view under pressure and joined the coup last week.

The consensus – too complacent – is that their coup will now fail. Which brings me to the question of how much May needs to win by to be safe and to get to the vote on her deal in December.

How much does May need to win by?

She needs a thumping win in a vote of confidence among Tory MPs, and Number 10 have cause to be more nervous than they are letting on. Technically, the Tory leader needs only 158 votes, that is half of the total group of Tory MPs plus one.

Part of the reason for the struggle to get to 48, was that quite a few Brexiteers and others who want May gone disagree with the ERG on the timing, thinking it better to wait until May’s deal crashes – as it may well do – in mid-December. If a vote of confidence arrives this week, that they argued against on timing, they will vote knowing that this is it for a year. If May wins convincingly, they know she will be there for twelve months according to the rules. The vote is a secret ballot.

Is everyone involved being honest?

No. Clinging to May for fear of chaos may keep sufficient people onside. But remember the possibility that a significant number of those ministers and MPs who are quietly very anti-May (because of her style of management, and the way the machine is run) might join the vote against privately.

No-one, really no-one, knows. If May keeps the rebellion in a vote of confidence below 80 she has smashed it in modern parlance, although she must know then that such a large vote is a pretty clear indication that her deal is doomed with so many Tories against their leader. Up towards 100 is difficult, but above 100 and a third or more of her MPs will have declared no confidence at a moment of national emergency. Unquestionably, it then becomes very difficult to stay in post. Chamberlain won the famous vote on Norway in 1940, and still had to resign. It’s a question of momentum and governability.

Incidentally, for connoisseurs of Tory plotting, there has been the most amusing campaign run in the last 72 hours by May’s supporters and deeply tribal ultra-loyalist Tories who fly under the sanctimonious “country before party” flag which is really just a device used when their party and the country suspect that the game is up, and loyalists then need something vaguely profound to say in a tight spot.

The intelligence filtering in from the country, via MPs and pollsters, does seem to suggest that many Tories and other voters view Theresa May as someone doing their best in terrible circumstances. However, it is important to understand that such patience is unlikely to be limitless. It is one thing for her to be given the chance to get her deal through – and that will be decided within a month or so – and quite another to think that the complete collapse of her core policy is survivable beyond Christmas.

Can May’s Brexit deal get through the House of Commons?

That’s the much bigger question in play. There are two competing sets of assumptions and arguments.

The first school of thought at Westminster is that May will get it through because, well, she’ll get it through because the government hasn’t prepared for the alternative, so she’ll  get it through. This assumes that May survives the vote among her MPs, goes to the summit later this month in search of assurances on the brilliance of the future relationship, and in December it just squeezes through when the Tory rebels dwindle, the DUP softens its stance for an assurance not worth the paper it’s not written on, and twenty or so Labour MPs vote to “save Britain from no deal.”

The message will be get this through and then get someone else to negotiate the future relationship with May gone, although no-one seems to have told the Prime Minister this. She is immovable.

This kind of victory for the deal is a plausible scenario. Yet, as it stands right now it is not the most likely outcome because the numbers are so poor for the government.

Even if you apply the usual test to an ERG claim – cut the number in half – then there seem to be about 40 Tory MPs vehemently opposed to the deal if the ERG says up to 80. The DUP is backing those cabinet ministers trying, fruitlessly, to change a deal the EU says is now closed, and looks pretty implacably opposed to the Northern Ireland aspects of the deal. May would thus need as many as 40-50 Labour MPs. No sign of it yet.

Why are some MPs so opposed to the deal?

It is a long Brexiteer story, which ultimately comes down to the legitimate concern about the infamous backstop. If the Prime Minister’s supposedly whizz bang future relationship deal is not done by the end of 2020 then the UK defaults to being in a customs union, in the EU’s customs territory, in essence for ever with no right to give notice. Having seen the EU negotiate, and the pitiful way the UK has responded, there is little appetite for assurances that it will never come to a backstop. That, plus the concerns on Northern Ireland being hived off into EU control, means that opposition is deep set and hard to shift.

What happens if the deal goes down in December?

Prepare for parliamentary warfare against a backdrop of big business going bonkers and markets gyrating. The options then become under May, or more likely a new Prime Minister, as follows:

i) Face up to it, the negotiations have failed, and a new Prime Minister sets about either trying rescue elements of the current proposed deal (money, citizens rights, transition that suits both sides etc) or just level with the country that we’re leaving and we can handle it with a managed no deal. At the weekend Peter Foster of the Telegraph published a fascinating counter to all of the bed-wetting, which is now even worse than it was during the referendum itself. No deal is suboptimal. It’ll be tricky but manageable if the government gets its act together, and a new leader kicks out half the cabinet, and seeks “side deals” with the EU and member states to keep travel and trade flowing, and to allow security cooperation, by leaving some of the money on the table. Other countries are preparing for this.

ii) Remainers could try to force through a second referendum, although time is tight. Both front-benches are opposed, for now. There doesn’t seem to be a majority for it in the Commons, and even if there is there would then be months of wrangling over the question (multiple choice?) and argument on whether we’re going for best of three or best of five referenda, or planning to do it every four years like the Olympics. If the Tory leadership tried to back a referendum, the party would split, full Corn Laws time.

iii) General election. That might happen, only if a handful of Tory Remainer MPs vote to bring down the government, in the process leaving their party. Then the Tories have 14 days to form an alternative administration under a new leader who can command a majority in the Commons. If all that fails, general election in January. Happy New Year!

iv) Vote to demand a delay of Article 50, although that doesn’t get anyone very far and the EU is unlikely to agree unless it’s instigated to hold a referendum on begging to get back in. Any more than six or eight weeks of a delay and the UK has to take part in the European elections in May 2019. Imagine the Faragist carnage. Not a good idea.

Party’s over. Take your pick from these options.

What is Labour’s plan to sort this all out?

Pass.

No, really. What is Labour’s plan?

Labour’s plan is to make a series of increasingly implausible and contradictory claims in the hope that no-one notices. Labour would reopen the negotiations, only the EU says they are closed.  Labour wants a general election and if not that maybe a referendum in which Jeremy Corbyn cannot say which way he would vote.

Who is Stephen Barclay?

He’s the new Brexit Secretary. I’m old enough to remember when political reporters would get fired for not knowing who an MP is. Now some of the youngsters boast about it on social media! It is true that Barclay is not well known, so far. The new Brexit Secretary, the replacement for Dominic Raab, is not allowed to be involved in Brexit, which is really just a formalising of the situation at DEXEU in the last two years. Barclay was City minister for a while, and he seems to be well-regarded. Buy shares.

Anything else to report?

This newsletter has gone on long enough and I’ll be back with more later this week. So no, that’s probably it for now.

Any plans for this evening?

Yes, thank you for asking. A glass of wine, a film, and no more Brexit until tomorrow morning.