“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed,
and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity
(Yeats, The Second Coming, 1919).”
It was a week of massive excitement with little change. It started with a ruling from the European Court of Justice that the UK can unilaterally revoke Article 50 without the support or permission of the other members of the EU; this removes a major obstacle just in case May’s deal is defeated, the government falls or the possibility of another referendum comes to fruition.
As the country settled in to watch the vote this past Tuesday in Parliament on Theresa May’s Brexit Deal, it became obvious to our increasingly perplexed (and perplexing) Prime Minister what everyone else already knew; she didn’t have the votes to get her divorce deal through Parliament.
Either the PM did rather poorly in maths when at school or she had somehow become so detached from reality that she was unable to understand that in the absence of a united Tory party (and they are anything but united) and without the support of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) who view May’s deal as a betrayal and are really pissed off at the treatment of the North of Ireland differently from the rest of the United Kingdom, aka the Irish Backstop (btw, the Scottish National Party (SNP) would sell their souls for Scotland to be treated thusly as part of this deal) and even if a few Labour MPs and a Liberal Democrat or 2 would support her, the numbers just simply were not there and rumours abounded that the loss would be in triple figures.
Rather than put her deal to a vote the PM cancelled the vote and ran off to meet with other leaders of the EU on the pretext of getting some “clarification” from both leaders of European governments and the EU itself on the Irish backstop. In other words, May travelled around Europe stopping for meals in the Netherlands (a sympathetic Mark Rutte would help she thought; nope), Germany (where she couldn’t get out of the car ruining a photo opportunity with Angela Merkel; again a resounding no), and the planned EU summit which was not supposed to discuss Brexit changed its agenda putting Brexit on it (and still no joy).
Prokofiev’s Troika
To say that Parliament was not amused by her cancelling the vote following days of debate on her deal is an understatement. Whether there would be a meaningful vote on her deal; whether it was postponed or cancelled needed clarification. She has an amazing ability to never answer a question directly. She claimed during Prime Minister’s Question Time that a meaningful vote had already been taken; referring to the referendum itself. But it now seems Parliament will get a say sometime in January.
While obviously Labour, the SNP and the Lib Dems were furious; members of her own party were also not amused. The accusation (once again) of contempt of Parliament echoed across Parliament from the right of the Tory Party, through Labour, the SNP, the Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru, and the Greens.
Continuing the scheduled debate in her absence and with the SNP and the Lib Dems pushing Labour to call a vote of No Confidence in the hopes of bringing down the government; the Tories moved first. Just as she was planning on heading over for breakfast in Ireland with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, a call comes from Graham Brady (head of the 1922 Committee) telling her that the 48 letters of No Confidence had been submitted to him.This meant that a vote of No Confidence in her leadership of the Tory Party had to be scheduled and was in fact set for that very evening.
May had to fight for her leadership. To garner support, May states that she will not lead the Tory Party into the next scheduled general elections (5th of May 2022) thereby ensuring that she has even less power than she has now as she is officially a lame-duck Prime Minister. Amidst all the plotting and speculation of who is interested in the poisoned chalice of leading the Tory Party and carrying out Brexit, May introduces another possibility to her mantra of “either my deal or no deal” (i.e., crashing out of the EU) that is, not getting Brexit.
It became obvious is that even if she won the Tory vote of no confidence, the situation will not change at all; given her red lines (which includes non-membership of the Single Market and not staying in the EU Customs Union), this is actually the best deal that she could obtain.
Defeating the Tory No Confidence vote on her leadership (200-117), May heads off to the EU Summit to once again ask for ”clarification” and some “legal” guarantees from the EU that the Irish Backstop will only be temporary and that trade negotiations would continue irrespective of the backstop coming into force.
All this drama is to no avail at all, as the EU cannot offer legal guarantees without changing the divorce deal (which they will not do); moreover, and let’s be real, Jean-Claude Juncker is correct, no one understands clearly what it is that she is asking for. Nebulous and imprecise is him being really polite. The EU states the obvious, the deal is the deal and getting it through her party and Parliament is her problem not theirs.
Prokofiev’s Dance of the Knights
So where does this leave the Tories?
While everyone sits here wondering what the hell is Theresa May up to, the answer is just speculation.
If there is any logic to what May is doing perhaps Jo Johnson (brother of Boris and a Remain Tory MP who resigned from the Government over the Brexit deal in November) may be correct. He thinks that she is stalling the vote, hoping that it will leave things too late to change forcing the issue of her deal or no deal. He has called for a second referendum.
The Tories have essentially 4 choices:
- Theresa May’s Brexit Deal (they do not have the votes for this);
- No Deal or its variant of going out of the EU and immediately getting taken on WTO rules. This is plan A of the Hard Brexiteers. However, it also does not have the votes. There are at most 40 Tory hard Brexiteers that support it. An attempt will certainly be made across parties to vote against it as most MPs agree that this is not in the best interests of the UK. However, it is not clear whether they will be able to vote against it as it is the default to May’s deal;
- Revoke Article 50 hoping to get another deal under another Tory leader (but, the defeat of the No Confidence Vote has given May another year as leader). An extension of Article 50 would require assent from the other members of the EU;
- Another referendum (which is opposed by May and the Brexiteers) in which remain will be an option.
The additional possibility (spoken of by some MPs across parties) of a soft Brexit on a Norway plus model in the EFTA (European Free Trade Association) or being in the EEA (European Economic Area) has already been rejected by Norway as they do not want to be dominated by the UK (it is a small group of small countries) and that they accept the four freedoms which the Tories reject. Heidi Nordby Lunde (a conservative Norwegian politician) made this telling comment:
“The UK seems to be considering joining our Efta family as a temporary solution – Norway for now – until it gets a better deal. It really surprises me that anyone would think Norwegians would find that appealing. It would be like inviting the rowdy uncle to a Christmas party, spiking the drinks and hoping that things go well. They would not.”
What about Labour?
Labour is caught in a bit of a bind. While two-thirds of Labour’s members support Remain, there are members that support Brexit. Moreover, in many traditional Labour voting areas in the Northeast and Northwest of the country Brexit was victorious. How do you hold onto these seats in a general election and not offer a Brexit?
The vote in former Industrial and Manufacturing areas does not reflect a class conscious working class vote acting as a class in itself for itself. These voters have fallen prey to a right-wing media and the politics of divide and rule, the Brexit vote has happened, how democratically can this Brexit vote be addressed or even overturned? It cannot be done by the Parliament itself; it will require a democratic vote by the population. Equally important, cogent economic reforms must be done to offer support to these people; abandoned by New Labour and treated as irrelevant by the Tories.
The 6 tests have been useful; they essentially prevent LP support of any Tory Brexit given the red lines established by May and in the Tory Manifesto. But they are not a plan in and of themselves.
While the tactic of standing by and letting the Tory Party implode has served Corbyn well up until now, we are heading towards crunch time. If Corbyn and McDonnell make the correct decision, they will win and win big. If they make the wrong choice, it may spell the end of the left in control of the leadership of the LP, the resurgence of the Labour right and a Tory victory in the next general election.
The LP is under pressure from the SNP, the Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru and the Greens to call a vote of No Confidence in the hopes of bringing down May’s government.
But even though 117 Tory MPs voted that they had no confidence in May’s leadership of the Tory Party, it is quite another thing to get them to vote against her in this context. They would be voting to bring down a Tory government. They are worried that Labour Party under Corbyn would win a general election deriving out of a vote of No Confidence if a government could not be formed or a motion for a vote of confidence fails.
This is probably why they moved to bring her down internally in the hopes of replacing her with a Brexiteer. May’s own problems with the EU are free movement of labour – single market -- and the European Courts having a say over Britain rather than being members of the EU itself.
Moreover, the DUP have said they will vote against her deal not against a Tory government; even with DUP support, Labour cannot win a vote of no confidence unless Tories vote against their own government. The Tory right will not support Labour (they actually view the Labour Left as dangerous Marxists) and it is questionable whether the Tory Remainers will as they also want to see a Labour government in power like they want an outbreak of the Plague.
Under the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act (2011, another present of the Con-Dem coalition), an early general election can only be called by a vote of 2/3 of total membership MPs or a vote of no confidence is passed.
In both cases, assuming that the Tories will not support either method, there are insufficient numbers in Labour, SNP, Lib Dems, Plaid, and the Greens. Sinn Fein does not take up its 7 seats, this means that the 10 seats of the DUP are irrelevant in the first scenario (they won’t have enough votes) and see the above problem on a vote of no confidence. Given their politics, what are the probabilities that they will vote to bring down the Tories?
These parties can call a vote of no confidence, but what will it do except to express discontent if they cannot get it through? It is possible that LP is waiting until May’s deal fails as that would be a good time to do so, but will they have the votes?
What else can Labour do?
Labour has been arguing for a general election; but even with a general election, there is no way that they will be able to ignore the issue of Brexit in their election manifesto. Certainly reversing austerity and putting progressive economic proposals out there is essential to defeat the Tories; but what will they say on Brexit? What will they propose?
The Labour leadership and shadow cabinet have been saying that they want the opportunity to negotiate a better Brexit. How is that possible? They do not have the same red lines as Theresa May, but they have said that they want managed migration which brings them into conflict with the Single Market which requires free movement of labour and capital. The EU will probably refuse to budge on as that is one of the foundations of the EU; why should they allow the British to manage their migration and no one else? On the other hand, this may push a debate in the EU on this issue. But this would have a reactionary dynamic based on a racist agenda.
Agreeing to stay in the EU customs union will eliminate the need for an Irish backstop that has undermined May’s Brexit deal, but is that a good deal for the working class in Britain? We have already seen that Norway will oppose the UK being part of EFTA/EEA, so a Norway plus model (supported by Labour’s Stephen Kinnock for example) will not fly either.
Alternatively, the Labour leadership could take control over the Remain “movement” and call for a second referendum on May’s deal, no deal and remain in the EU arguing that there is a democratic deficit. They could alternatively propose a second referendum as part of their manifesto asking for a mandate on a new negotiated deal by Labour. In both cases, a democratic vote would be addressed by a democratic vote.
I would argue that those 16+ who will be affected by Brexit strongly should be able to vote along with European residents in Britain. Many who voted in the Brexit referendum were unclear what it meant; given the negotiated deal it is now clearer what will happen if/when the UK leaves the EU.
Whatever the Labour leadership decides, time is running out. Austerity continues to act on the lives of the British working class, wages are still below 2007 levels, working conditions have deteriorated, the NHS is in crisis, and Universal Credit must be defeated and a system of social security based on recognition of human dignity of benefit claimants must replace it. With all eyes on Brexit, the political and economic situation for working class Britons continues to deteriorate. If we want a government for the many and not the few, hard decisions need to be made.