Brexit Is Set To Bring Down The Government

The last couple of days have shown that Brexit is about to bring down the government. The government's own weakness and instability was demonstrated by the extent to which it is now under the control of the DUP, alongside the Tory Party's own Brextremist wing, around Rees-Mogg et al. But, the underlying contradictions surrounding Brexit, and particularly surrounding the Tory Party's own dilemmas resulting from the red lines it has wrapped around its neck have also begun to tighten, as delusion confronts reality, and dissembling descends into farce.

The Tories proposals for transition have been massaged into implementation, as may tried to dissemble her way into a reconciliation of those contradictions. In Ireland, regulatory alignment was conflated with regulatory equivalence. The two things are quite distinct, but David Davies showed in the discussion on Labour's urgent question, that either he does not understand that distinction, or else he must elide the distinction in order to have any hope of pulling off their dissembling manoeuvre on the issue to resolve the border issue. Regulatory alignment means that regulations are aligned to the EU regulations, i.e. they are made the same as those regulations. As Britain has no part in determining what those regulations are, outside the EU, it must agree to accept whatever those regulations are, as and when they are adopted by the EU. It leaves no room for dispute, and any dispute can only be resolved by the ECJ.

Regulatory equivalence, however, only means that the UK has a set of regulations that are equivalents of similar regulations adopted in the EU. The yard might be a standard measure of length, equivalent to the metre being a standard measure of length in the EU, for example, but it in no sense means that a yard and a metre are the same. Britain might have regulations on working hours, which are equivalent to EU regulations on working hours, but it does not at all mean that they are the same. Britain might set in such regulations, for example, that the standard working week should be 50 hours, as opposed to the equivalent regulations in the EU, being for a 40 hour week. Such distinctions are important when it comes to trading relations, because for their to be free and equal trade across unimpeded borders, it implies that a common set of such regulations should exist.

In order to try to massage the contradictions they face the Tories have obscured the distinction between regulatory and alignment and regulatory equivalence. Regulatory equivalence at the end of the day, enables Britain to have completely different regulations than those that exist within the EU, but to claim that they are “equivalent”. But, the dissembling around that issue was itself blown apart by the Brextremists of the DUP, who made it clear that if there was only regulatory equivalence, they would use the Stormont Parliament, to determine regulations for Northern Ireland that were the same as those in the rest of the UK, and not the same as those applying in the rest of Ireland/EU. It is quite clear that the Irish Republic/EU could not accept such a blatant slap in the face.

But, the problem for the Tories is that the more they are then forced to define regulatory equivalence as, in fact, regulatory alignment, the more this blows apart further contradictions in their position. Firstly, as soon as the Tories suggested that Northern Ireland could effectively remain inside the Customs Union and Single Market, on the basis of such regulatory alignment, it was inevitable that the SNP would demand that they effectively remained in the Customs Union and Single Market on the basis of such regulatory alignment too. Welsh Labour quickly said “Me too”, followed by Sadiq Khan on behalf of London. Spain has now come along to say, and the same should apply to Gibraltar. Worse, for the Tories, keen not to be outflanked by the SNP and Scottish Labour, Ruth Davison, for the Scottish Tories has piped up to say that if there is to be regulatory equivalence for Northern Ireland, then that should apply to the whole of Britain.

The reality is that if a separate deal s done for Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, London, and every other distinct administrative area is in its rights to argue for such a separate deal, so as to remain in the Customs Union and Single Market. That would turn the UK state into a Swiss cheese, full of holes and in tatters. Moreover, its not just geographical areas where that applies to. The government has already had to accept that it will need to stay in the European Air Safety Association, so that British planes can continue to be certified, and able to fly. A similar arrangement seems inevitable as far as Euratom, for the transportation of radioactive materials, and the European Medicines Association, so that pharmaceuticals produced in Britain can be certified so as to be sold in international markets. 

Having hundreds, if not thousands of these individual arrangements is wholly impractical, not to mention far more expensive than having membership of them directly via membership of the EU. The practical reality of regulatory alignment for the whole of the UK, is that Britain would have to remain inside the Customs Union and Single Market. But, the more that rationality imposes itself, the more the government comes into direct conflict with its Brextremist wing. In the debate on labour's Urgent Question today, it was not just Labour MP's that stood up one after another, to state the obvious that the government should just drop its red lines and accept the need to remain in the Customs Union and Single Market, not was it even just Liberal and SNP MP's that lined up to support that contention, it was Tory MP's like Anna Soubry, who stood up to say that the government had no majority in Parliament to push through a hard Brexit, and that a clear majority in the house supported staying inside the Customs Union and Single Market.

And Scottish Tory MP's who now see the writing on the wall also lined up behind Ruth Davison's argument that any regulatory alignment had to be one that applied to the whole of Britain, and not just to Northern Ireland. The government has only the backing of a rump of Brextremist MP's like Rees-Mogg, and their fellow travellers in the DUP, plus a few reactionary nationalist MP's in the Labour Party to support their position. The government is resting on a tiny pivot of support that is eroding by the day, not least by the repeated scandals that plague all such governments in their dying days. If they manage to dissemble their way to a deal over Ireland by the end of the week, it will only heighten the contradictions they face, as Scotland, and other parts of the UK demand the right to strike similar deals, tearing not just the union apart, but tearing the Tory Party itself all the more surely. This could spell not only the dying days of the government, but the death agonies of the Tory Party, as it currently exists, itself. No one should shed a tear over its demise.