Talks failing, May sinking, no deal better than abject surrender

First, a health warning…

Although it seems unlikely, at any moment it could be announced that (ring the church bells!) something calling itself a Brexit deal has been agreed between British negotiators and the EU. The number of people involved in making the decision required will be so small – Michel Barnier, the leaders of the two major powers in the EU 27, Theresa May and a handful of officials on both sides – that a breakthrough will happen in secret and then be communicated suddenly as breaking news. Then EU leaders can speedily make their travel plans for an emergency summit to sign off on the Withdrawal Agreement and accompanying texts relating to the future relationship.

But it seems implausible. The deadline for getting a deal done this month seems to be Wednesday evening. If there is no outline deal by then – no “I have in my hands  a piece of paper moment” – it is all pushed back to December 13th and 14th. That is beyond tight. This week we’ll know whether beleaguered Number 10 is left relying on the EU playing Santa Claus just before Christmas. The uneasy stirrings from ministers and Tory MPs suggest that they no longer believe in Father Christmas, or in May’s promises that a deal is almost there.

Really, the fundamentals have not changed and negotiators are stuck on a basic piece of logic because it cannot be fudged. For there to be a deal the EU will have to move on what has become the critical question. The fear is that that post-departure, during transition, a future relationship deal is not done so we fall back on the backstop and that becomes the dealer ever if necessary. That cannot work.

In the end, for all the Brexit nerd chatter and months of interminable wittering by hacks like me, it is quite simple. As Labour peer Lord Falconer, no Brexiteer himself, wisely put it the other day on social media when when responding to an EU negotiator: no serious country could possibly vote to sign up in perpetuity and be barred from leaving.

“Understand about time limited, but there can’t be a border arrangement in public international law which has to last in perpetuity. There must be a means for either party to give reasonable notice.”

The EU’s negotiation strategy rests on seeking something from the UK that no UK govt of either major party could possibly sign up to. The EU either moves, or the Brexit talks fail.

Based on a blizzard of conversations, I’ll lay out where I think that leaves us all.

With time so short, it makes more sense surely to work on the basis that if the EU hasn’t moved by now then it is not going to. The prospects for the talks are bleak. The mood is sombre. Cabinet ministers have even let it be known, to the BBC, that they were sceptical about the Chequers deal when they agreed it in July. Ministers who actually resigned over Chequers can now issue a hollow laugh on hearing this. But the briefing that existing cabinet ministers always had doubts about Chequers sounds ominous for May – it sounds very much like the ground being laid for her removal more in sorrow than in anger. They tried to warn her, seems to be the message, she chose this path, now talks have failed, if they fail, it is all very sad. A marker is being laid that it might soon be time for a new approach under a new person.

Why? The hope vested in Chequers was that it would unlock the talks. If the talks run out of time and remain locked, then the Prime Minister’s policy is revealed to have been a total failure.

So what then? Or what now, considering that the hypothetical then is now very close to being here?

Cut through the noise, and the choice minus the EU moving very soon becomes binary – that is no deal (albeit mitigated by temporary arrangements of the type the French are preparing) or abject national surrender.

What will the beret wearers and pro-Brussels fanatics in ultra-Remain do?

It’s not hard to work out. Among those dedicated to blocking Brexit, among ultra-liberal opinion, it’s already pretty clear that the answer is surrender. Beg the EU to take Britain back, apologise for the whole horrible business, crawl back to Brussels on our knees, and promise never to do it again.

Watch also the legal effort to get it confirmed that Article 50 can be halted, on which a judgment is expected before Christmas too. If that case is lost, Remainers in Parliament hope to order the government to withdraw Brexit, or create such an air of crisis that the government collapses and out of the chaos emerges something. A second referendum can then be magically patched together.

One overlooked aspect of the second referendum fantasy is the assumption that Brexiteers would take part. If, rather than implementing the result of the 2016 referendum (promised in a manifesto, legislated for, the result endorsed by Parliament on numerous occasions) Parliament chooses to not do what it was told in 2016 and has since agreed to do, I suspect many millions of us would sit it out and refuse to recognise the legitimacy of the re-run of the referendum. There are the makings of a non-UKIP “Respect the real referendum” alternative, very noisy and potentially disruptive party, and many millions of pounds by British supporters that could be tapped to pay for it.

That prospect should, if it is not already, be weighing heavily on the minds of Tory MPs thinking about what to do next.

If surrender does not appeal, failed talks mean no deal. I wish there was another way, but there it is. At that moment this choice crystallises it becomes a question of how such a difficult scenario is handled and who will stand up for Britain. If it comes to it this will require a command and control (in Whitehall terms) approach with a new leadership operating at speed, with a comprehensive reorganisation of the cabinet, and the return of some former bigger beasts perhaps even on a limited cross party basis.

Short of there being a sudden transformation of Theresa May into Margaret Thatcher, such a situation surely merits a new, emergency Prime Minister. Boris has blown it if he ever had it. So there would need to be a very quick contest (with a Tory membership vote delayed until after Brexit) to choose a member of the cabinet or former cabinet minister who can command a majority in the Commons during the emergency.

As a moderate Brexiteer I always wanted a deal and hope it can be salvaged at one minute to midnight. I won’t, if it comes to it and the talks fail, be one of those embracing no deal with enthusiasm or relish. But if there is no acceptable deal to be done, then no deal it is over abject surrender.