On Continued Brexit Uncertainty

I'm not sure where we go from here on Brexit. In either the short-term or the long-term.

May has so boxed herself in over the last few years that the final failure of her policy must be explosive. Therefore, somewhat random.

A 52:48 vote indicates the softest of soft Brexits. We could have withdrawn from the political institutions and stayed in the economic ones. For a decade or so, a sort of an international sulk, before re-joining the political insitutions.

May could have started the process (1) by engaging anyone and everyone, doing her best to fashion a national, multi-party consensus ahead of pushing on with the political process of withdrawal. She chose a cowardly path forward, putting Tory Party unity ahead of national unity and demanding obedience rather than seeking compromise. That might of worked had her proposal been workable (i.e. acceptable to her own side  - the Tories -  and the other side - the EU) but they aren't. There is no majority for anything but that did not need to be the case. Even from the flawed starting position of the EU referendum a consensus could have been built.

Her deal starts from the premise that we must restrict the free movement of people. From that flows leaving the single market, from that flows the difficult decision about where the border between the EU and England should be; the Irish Sea or the Irish Border. From flows questions about the existance of the United Kingdom.

Starting down that road and doing so in the way she did means that we have ended up where we are. The Tory Party rupture is barely contained. Five and half million people have signed a petition that Article 50 be revoked. Her deal looks impossible to pass but we still have the very messy business of deciding what to do instead. And instead of doing that in conversation and dialogue and conference over a period of a year before we start talking to the EU we're going to try and do it with a series of single binary votes. In a single day.  Perhaps. Perhaps not. Starting after the EU have told us to finally sort it out.

She may yet get her deal through. I think not. However, we are at the point where there must now be a move by Parliament away from saying "No to the Deal" to saying "Yes" to something, even if that something is a no deal exit. That requires breaking something. There is not time to renegotiate from scratch a different deal before we must take part in the European Parliament elections. Nor is there time for a referendum. So any attempt to think again, to start again, requires us to participate in the European elections. Both of those processes are year long, perhaps multi-year long processes. We remain in the EU for one to two years whilst this happens. That probably means the end of May as Prime Minister and an open, formal split of the Tory Party. (The Tory Party's MP's are mostly soft-Remainers, Tory Members are mostly Leavers, mostly hard-Leavers, Tory voters trend Leave.)

However, because the ERG bungled their coup last year (2) May can't easily be removed as Tory Leader. There isn't time to No Confidence their own Prime Minister as Prime Minister if she digs in and that requires Tory MP's to vote against their own government. There is time to straight out Revoke Article 50, but that requires Tory MP's to vote down their own government. Nobody seems to want to be interim Prime Minister as the condition appears to be that they won't stand for the actual leadership. There's no time for a General Election because we would need to extend Article 50, take part in the European Elections, and May won't do, so until you can get rid of May, you can't get rid of May.

At some point that has to break. Either the Tory Party splits, or May resigns, or we leave with no deal as an act of Government policy, or May breaks her solomn word again. Or the Queen intervenes and we start a third constitutional crisis inside the two we already have.

Things are perhaps a little less fraught on the Labour benches. Perhaps.

And then there is the exciting question of what happens to Britain after we leave the EU, or decide that we're not leaving the EU.

Firstly, we have perhaps five years of negotiating an actual trade deal with the EU. This issue isn't going away.

Then there is Rejoin.

The demographics and the economics are against a permanent Leave win. I understand that the Rejoin campaign is already well-funded and waiting in the wings. Five and half million people think we should just straight out Revoke Article 50 and more than a million people marched in London for a second referendum. Those people aren't going away. One of the feature of a binary, blunt referendum is that it makes people chose sides and lots and lots of people have chosen the side of Remain in (or Rejoining) the EU. There is a political party with an explicit committment to the EU with seats in Parliament (3). There is also the Liberal Democrats.

The Labour Party risk being squeezed between their Remain supporting voters and their Leave supporting constituents. They seem pathologically unprepared for leading a multi-party government.

I'm less worried about disappointed Leavers. I note that Farage (Nigel Farage) can only get about 300 (4) people to join him in Sunderland for his march, but there will be many. Many disappointed Leavers if Britain doesn't leave the EU. Many disappointed Leavers when they discover that restrictions on freedom of movement mean restrictions on them. Many disappointed Leavers when they discover that the bits of Britain they live in are still ignored by the rich cities, but now treated with hostility as well as disdain. Many disappointed Leavers when they discover that, if you want to trade with the EU, you trade on their terms, not yours.

So the next ten years look interesting. Perhaps the next 20. What started out as a internal Tory feud as been allowed to infect the entire nation.

What happens over the next few months will just be the explosive end to Act 2 of a national crisis in five Acts.

(1) and I am the Co-Chair of an organisation that literally told her this

(2) and let's take a moment to applaud the chutzpah of a bunch of spunk-rags so fucking inept that they  didn't realise ahead of time that then couldn't get rid of Teressa May as leader of their own party trying to lead our country out of the EU. If ther were Moses, they'd have tripped over there own beard on the way down Mount Sinai, dropped their staff on their foot, been knocked face first in to the dust by Aaron whilst trying to pick up the staff, dropped one of the Tablets with the Ten Commandments on it, dropped the other one whilst picking up the first one, been knocked over again by Aaron after Aaron stood on the end of Moses' staff and hit himself, rake-like, straight in the willie-nuts, got up, got into a fist fight wtih Aaron,  dropped the Tablets down a rabbit hole and arrived, hobbling,  at the bottom of mountain with no Commandments, no staff, two black-eyes,  Aaron limping and swearing to himself and then confidently led the Jews to Somalia via Bognor Bloody Regis.

(3) The SNP

(4) The geography of Sunderland doesn't act as a force multiplier, the Stadium of Light is harder to fill than the  Gates of Fire.