With Brexit vote defeat looming it’s disarray, dismay and Theresa Nay
KEY Cabinet ministers are urging Theresa May to duck a vote on her Brexit deal on Tuesday night.
They fear that if it goes ahead, she will lose by a margin so large that it could capsize the Government.
One Secretary of State tells me it would be “group suicide” to press ahead with the vote.
Number 10 is adamant that no decision on whether to find a way to avoid the vote has been taken yet. Senior figures there say that will not be decided until Monday.
But they do admit they are making little headway in trying to quell this rebellion, and that they are heading for a loss.
How big? “I’m sure it’ll breach three figures”, one Cabinet minister says of the margin of defeat.
A way to avoid such a humiliation would be to find an amendment that could pass the Commons.
This means there would be no vote on May’s deal as it currently stands, enabling the Government to argue that it hadn’t actually been defeated.
Though, as one source admits, voters would be left baffled by this procedural trick.
This approach isn’t guaranteed to work either.
First of all, it would rely on John Bercow selecting the amendment — which is far from certain. The Speaker is supposed to be impartial, but Bercow has long used his power to cause the Government trouble.
Much of Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting was taken up with ministers complaining about him. Liam Fox, the Trade Secretary, called Bercow “a disgrace to his office”.
Also, some Tory rebels are itching to defeat the Government. They are discussing whether to vote against ALL amendments, regardless of whether they agree with them or not, so they can make clear their opposition to May’s deal. Some in Cabinet think that if MPs voted for an amendment setting out what would make the deal acceptable to Parliament, it would strengthen May’s hand with the EU.
One tells me: “The negotiation has been all about us saying yes or no. This would make the EU say yes or no to something.”
Chancellor Philip Hammond, though, argued at Thursday’s inner Cabinet that any concessions are more likely to come after a vote has been lost — so there was a case for pressing on.
What May thinks the way ahead is remains unclear even to her inner Cabinet, much to their frustration.
“The main problem is that it is very difficult to read the PM,” one tells me, adding that, “Until she decides what she wants to do, it is very difficult to put weight behind any particular outcome.”
Backbench Tory MPs are also becoming increasingly irritated with her.
One senior figure who is normally sympathetic complains that she has become “completely messianic about the backstop”. This source says that Tory MPs “want to hear a solution rather than this is the only choice and they’re stupid”.
Allies of May are deeply pessimistic about the EU offering any meaningful concessions.
Their view is that the EU thinks that the alternatives to May’s deal are either a softer Brexit or a second referendum, so it has little incentive to offer much up.
Not everyone in the Cabinet is so sure.
One senior minister, with Prime Ministerial ambitions, has been explaining to junior ministers in detail how they could negotiate a better deal on the backstop.
Tory leadership contenders are readying themselves.
They calculate that if the vote goes ahead this week May will lose by a big margin, the 48 letters will then go in and May could well lose that vote of confidence, triggering a contest.
If she does go ahead with Tuesday’s vote, she’ll be betting her premiership on keeping the margin of defeat respectable. It would be a mighty gamble.
NORWAY-PLUS GETS COLD SHOULDER
IF May’s deal falls, what’s next? Right now, the two favoured options in the Commons are “Norway-Plus”, which would see the UK stay in the single market so free movement would continue and a temporary customs union with the EU, and a second referendum.
“A second referendum is now more likely than Norway”, one Cabinet Minister tells me.
There are two reasons for this. First, the Labour front bench are not keen on Norway-Plus and a number of those on the Labour benches who did support it have moved to backing a second referendum. Second, there is now more Tory opposition to it than there was before, particularly among the Cabinet.
One Secretary of State warns that a Norway Plus deal “would destroy the Conservative Party forever”.
The problem is that in an effort to make the plan acceptable to the Europeans, it has gone from being a temporary solution that would give the UK time to negotiate a free trade deal with the EU to an indefinite arrangement that involves accepting the withdrawal agreement and with it the backstop. This all makes it much less acceptable to Brexiteers.
Even those in the Cabinet who are sympathetic to the idea admit that it would face problems.
One tells me: “I am not sure it is possible because so many people would trash it.”
Norway-Plus would also require a new leader.
Those close to May say she could not endorse a deal that did not end free movement.
Opposition fears a confidence trick
EVEN if the Government loses heavily on Tuesday, it would still survive a vote of confidence.
The Tory rebels and the DUP have been clear that they would vote for the Government in that debate.
This poses a dilemma for Labour.
It means that any attempt to bring down the Government would fail, and risk providing a rare moment of Tory unity. I understand, though, that opposition parties have been mulling a different approach – a censure motion in the PM.
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This would allow the House to express its disapproval of May’s handling of Brexit, without bringing down the Government.
The thinking is that this might persuade the DUP to support it. It would demonstrate that without them, the Government cannot win a confidence vote.
Traditionally, these censure motions have been accompanied by a cut in salary for the minister concerned. But there are worries on the Opposition benches that such an approach could backfire because it would look too personal.
PM MUST DEAL WITH BLAME
THERESA MAY has repeatedly said that “no deal is better than a bad deal”.
She has been Prime Minister since July 2016 and triggered the two-year process for leaving the EU in March 2017.
So, if the UK couldn’t now leave without a deal without facing catastrophic consequences, who should carry the can for that?
ONE theory doing the rounds this week is that May could resign as PM and advise the Queen to ask her de facto deputy, David Lidington, to form a government.
This government would then, so the thinking goes, move towards a Norway-style deal.
But I am told there would be resignations from the Cabinet if this happened, and a leading Tory backbencher warns that such a government would not be able to command the confidence of the House.
- James Forsyth is political editor of The Spectator.