It’s well established now that one of Theresa May’s major weaknesses is that she is a poor communicator. She doesn’t know how to ‘sell’. One of the key features of the botched 2017 general election campaign was Theresa May’s inability to sell the manifesto or promote a compelling vision. This failure characterises her entire government and is evident once again in the abject failure to sell the Withdrawal Agreement.
The government badly mishandled the publication of the Brexit deal, which is of great public interest and was inevitably going to be widely discussed in the media. The government should have set the narrative from the start, but bizarrely it unceremoniously published a 585-page document of turgid legalese on the internet. Almost immediately, hardliners who are opposed to any degree of compromise began to set the narrative of betrayal and surrender.
There is absolutely no way that any of the ministers who resigned had read, considered and understood the document before quitting the government. They simply used the opportunity to try and oust May and demand a pivot to their preferred options: the childishly named “SuperCanada” deal or leaving with no deal at all. The government left a vacuum when they should have been selling their deal and the ERG took full advantage.
To properly market the agreement and communicate its benefits to the public, it should have been accompanied by a concise, easily digestible paper with an executive summary. This would have summarised the benefits and compromises of the agreement, giving supportive ministers and MPs something to sell and defend.
There has been some ludicrous hyperbole doing the rounds comparing the Withdrawal Agreement to Neville Chamberlain’s ‘peace in our time’ or the Suez Crisis. This is not the rhetoric of serious politicians in a serious country, but a country of grandstanders and bluffers locked in a perpetual state of delusion and nostalgia. It’s time to grow up. The government is attempting to implement the democratic decision of the public reached in 2016 and manage our secession from a political union while minimising risk and economic damage.
Very little of Brexit has been handled how I would have liked since 2016 but we are where we are. This is the deal on the table. The Withdrawal Agreement is not perfect, but there are no perfect solutions. This agreement is the result of difficult negotiations and along with the political declaration will be a platform for negotiating a dynamic Association Agreement creating a new UK-EU partnership. Not so long ago Eurosceptics would have snapped this opportunity up with glee.
The government’s failure to communicate the relative merits of agreement has meant that the UK’s negotiating wins have been largely overshadowed. The EU wanted direct ECJ oversight, but the arbitration mechanism is not led by the EU, instead there will be a panel of 10 UK selected panellists, 10 EU selected and 5 joint selected. This bodes well for agreeing a dispute settlement in the future relationship, such as a joint court. The EU also dropped its demands that citizens’ rights fall under the direct jurisdiction of the ECJ.
Even the dreaded backstop, which acts as an insurance policy should the UK and the EU fail to negotiate a new agreement, is something of a fudge designed never to used. It is expected to be replaced by provisions in the future trade agreement, which is likely to be of unprecedented depth.
What exactly are the choices here? The embarrassingly shambolic ERG do not have any serious alternatives. The “SuperCanada” option would still require the backstop and represents a harmful downgrade in our trading relationship. No deal, as I have argued numerous times before, is a political and economic disaster waiting to happen. Both sides would likely seek to mitigate it but its still fraught with severe risk and would put the UK in a very weak position. If they had any sense they’d vote for the deal and get over the line. They have spent years seeking an end to our EU membership and with it in sight they are risking the entire endeavour.
Emboldened Remainers smell blood, and many see an opportunity to reject this deal and push for a second referendum. For this to work there would need to be an overwhelming vote for Remain, otherwise the European question would remain and the UK would be a destabilising and unconstructive EU member. Instead, Europhiles should seek a parliamentary majority with re-accession in their manifesto. Only then would the UK be a committed member.
The 2016 referendum was horribly divisive. A truly awful, shambolic affair that shamed the country. It brought out the very worst in people from both sides and created divides that will not heal for years. The referendum simply does not suit our parliamentary system or our political culture, it has created an ongoing constitutional crisis. Is the best response to this really to hold another one? It would inevitably be a nightmare, aggravating divides even further and igniting a narrative of betrayal and conspiracy fuelling a toxic populist movement.
It’s time to move on to the next stage and shape the future relationship, this is the next battle. The Withdrawal Agreement is a platform on which we can build a new partnership with a system of joint governance and cooperation that gives the UK far more privileges and much more influence than any other third country. At this point, it’s the most sensible option.