Theresa May’s temporary triumph

IT HAS BEEN a rare good week for Theresa May. In a series of votes on January 29th she secured backing from almost all her Conservative MPs and her Northern Irish Democratic Unionist allies for a motion asking her to go to Brussels to seek changes to her Brexit deal. She also defeated two amendments that could have seen Parliament seize control of the Brexit process. She comprehensively out-debated the Labour Party’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and even got him to drop his refusal to talk to her about how to get a new Brexit deal through the House of Commons, which resoundingly rejected the first version two weeks ago.

Two developments underlay her success. The first was an amendment by Sir Graham Brady, a leading Tory backbencher, that backed her Brexit deal so long as the much-disliked Irish “backstop”, an insurance policy to avert a hard border in Ireland by keeping the United Kingdom in a customs union with the European Union, is replaced by what it coyly called “alternative arrangements”. The second was a plan hatched by Tories from both the Remain and Leave wings of the party, dubbed the Malthouse compromise after the junior minister who dreamt it up, for a different backstop and for a longer transition period even if no withdrawal agreement is ratified. Although the Malthouse compromise seems unrealistic and Sir Graham’s plan lacks specifics, the combination was enough for the Brady amendment to win by 317 votes to 301.

A third crucial element was Mrs May’s promise to allow MPs another lot of votes on Brexit on February 14th. This was enough to head off (for now) amendments by Yvette Cooper, a Labour MP, and Dominic Grieve, a Tory, to rip up normal parliamentary procedure and pass their own bills designed to stop a no-deal Brexit and explore other options instead. Twenty-five Labour MPs defied their party whip to sink the Cooper amendment; they may yet come round to backing a revised deal. For Mrs May, the only fly in the ointment was the passage of another amendment, from Dame Caroline Spelman, a Tory, to reject a no-deal Brexit; but this has no legal force.

The prime minister’s triumph will prove short-lived, however. Even as the Brady amendment was being voted through, the EU was insisting that the Brexit withdrawal agreement, which includes the Irish backstop, would not be reopened. EU leaders are exasperated that Mrs May now supports a plan that jettisons a central part of the deal which she had previously insisted was the only one available.

Brussels is the more unwilling to reopen negotiations because Mrs May still refuses to change any of her negotiating red lines. As Kenneth Clarke, a veteran Tory MP, pointed out, the logical outcome now would be a permanent customs union with regulatory alignment, but Mrs May still rules this out. Moreover, if the withdrawal agreement were reopened, the EU thinks other issues such as fisheries, the budget or Gibraltar would be raised by leaders who believe they have already given Britain too many concessions. And the European Parliament, whose assent is needed for any deal, might well reject a deal that radically alters the current one.

Above all, the EU is not prepared to throw Ireland, which insists on keeping the backstop in order to avoid a hard border, under the bus. The interests of a member come above those of a leaver. It argues that the backstop is an inevitable outcome of Britain’s desire to leave the customs union and single market. Stopping a hard border is also seen as vital to protect the Good Friday Agreement that ended decades of sectarian “Troubles” in Northern Ireland.

Claims that some untried new technology can avoid all checks and controls on the Irish border are still viewed in Brussels as magical thinking. Indeed, Brexiteers’ insistence on removing the backstop is treated as evidence of doubts that their own magic would work. The repeated lurches in Britain’s approaches to Brexit seem only to strengthen the case for keeping the backstop as an insurance policy.

Tick, tock

This does not mean that the EU will do nothing to help Mrs May. It has already offered clarifications to make clear that it does not want the backstop to be used and that, if it were, it would be only temporary. These could be given greater legal force, perhaps through an interpretative declaration or a codicil, or even tweaks to the wording of the withdrawal agreement itself. And Brussels is already hinting that, if more time is needed beyond March 29th, the date set for Brexit, it is ready to entertain the notion.

With less than two months left, it is increasingly clear that more time will indeed be necessary. Parliament must pass a detailed withdrawal act as well as other big pieces of legislation and hundreds of statutory instruments before Brexit can happen. Only limited progress has been made in rolling over existing EU free-trade agreements that Britain will lose on its departure. Yet when Mrs May was repeatedly asked in the Commons by Ms Cooper if she would seek the EU’s agreement to push back the deadline, she refused to answer.

This plays into the other big concern of the week, which is the growing risk of a Brexit with no deal at all. The response of British business to the Commons votes was glum. The failure of Ms Cooper’s amendment means that leaving with no deal is still on the table as the default option, even if a majority of MPs have voted not to support it. Sabine Weyand, deputy to Michel Barnier, the EU’s Brexit negotiator, declared this week that the risk of no deal was now very high.

The markets seem more sanguine. The pound has risen in value since Mrs May’s deal was rejected by MPs. But many analysts think traders are underestimating the chances of a no-deal Brexit. Paul Hardy, Brexit director at DLA Piper, a law firm, reckons the EU is better prepared for no deal than Britain. He adds, however, that a big concern in Brussels will be to avoid the blame should a no-deal Brexit transpire.

It is this potential game of blame-shifting that makes the chance of no deal so worrying. Several Tory MPs and even some cabinet ministers have said they would fight any deliberate decision to go for a no-deal Brexit, if need be by resigning the party whip. EU leaders, too, will do whatever they can to avoid such an outcome, which would seriously damage not just Britain but the entire EU, and most notably Ireland. But if the clock runs down and both sides start blaming each other for being too intransigent, no deal could still happen by accident. To prevent it may take defter diplomacy and greater flexibility than either Mrs May or the EU has shown during the past two years.