Theresa May is attempting to bully parliament into supporting her Chequers proposals by trying to limit any vote to a binary choice between whatever deal she comes back with, or a No Deal Brexit. That is exactly what MP's suspected, last year, when discussing what was meant by, and what is required for, a meaningful vote. May's attempt to bully parliament is just the latest example of the anti-democratic, authoritarian approach the Tories have taken, in respect of the Brexit negotiations, from the start. It shows just how little they really meant when talking about bringing back control, and a concern for parliamentary sovereignty.
May knows that there is no majority support, in parliament, for her Chequers proposals, so, rather than accept a democratic vote, she wants to frame the vote in such restricted terms that MP's are allowed no real choice, and the only option to supporting her proposal would be to either abstain, or to vote for a No Deal Brexit. She calculates that, if opponents of both her Chequers proposals and a No Deal Brexit were to abstain, she has sufficient Tory votes, corralled from amongst those Tory MP's dependent upon their government sinecures, to be able to outvote the 80 or so Brextremists behind Mogg, and the handful of reactionary nationalist Labour MP's, who have voted with them.
Her calculation is fairly obvious. Labour, and the Tory Remainers would find it hard, if not impossible, to go through a lobby to support a No Deal Brexit. By making that the only option to opposing her Chequers plan, she could push it through, with only a small minority of MP's actually supporting it. It is the very antithesis of democracy, of bringing back control or promoting parliamentary sovereignty. It is the kind of thing that you would expect from the Tories authoritarian friends such as Orban in Hungary, Erdogan in Turkey, Netanyahu in Israel, Duterte in the Philippines, or Putin in Russia.
But, May's undemocratic manoeuvre can only backfire on her. Firstly, if the EU had any doubts about the duplicity of May and her government, this, together with the comments by Gove, over the last few days, which made clear, what I said recently that once any deal is signed, May will be on her way, and a hard Brextremist will replace her, who will force a divergence on the common rule book, and a ripping up of the agreement, should have dispelled them. So, May's attempt to foist this undemocratic binary choice on parliament, gives the EU every reason to reject May's Chequers Plan, and insist on a deal such as a Norway plus Switzerland deal, whereby Britain remains in the Customs Union and Single Market. Only such a deal would enable Labour, and Tory Remainers to be able to even consider voting for it. So, May has made it more difficult for herself to reach a deal with the EU. She has created conditions where the only option on the table will be to either capitulate entirely to the EU, or else to propose a No Deal Brexit, which parliament would then vote down.
But, assuming the EU have not been paying attention to her antics, and those of Gove and Co., and that they did reach some kind of deal with her, close to her Chequers proposals, what then? Firstly, Labour and Tory Remainers would join together to demand a real meaningful vote. With Labour, the TUC, and other organisations, including the Tories usual allies amongst the CBI and so on, opposing a hard Brexit, and looking for some kind of deal that ensures a continued close relationship with the EU around a Customs Union and Single Market, any attempt by May to railroad an undemocratic vote through parliament would lead to widespread public anger, and demands for a General Election. The demand would grow for a vote of no confidence in May's government, even before any vote on a Brexit deal could proceed. We would have to expect Labour to lead all out parliamentary disruption of the government's timetable.
Labour would put amendments to the government's motion, and indeed, its likely that the government would find itself having to put forward a Bill, rather than just a procedural motion. The first line of attack would be amendments demanding that further options be included, such as that the government be sent back to renegotiate a better deal, that the EU be approached to grant an extension of the Article 50 period, say for a further year, whilst such negotiations continued, or that an option for parliament to withdraw the Article 50 application be included in the vote. If that line of attack failed, then the next line of attack should be to demand that the two options be voted on separately, i.e. their should be a yes or no vote on whether to accept the deal that May comes back with, and a separate yes or no vote on whether to support a No Deal Brexit.
When proposals for reforming the House of Lords were put forward some years ago, that is exactly the way votes were undertaken. It ensures that a proposal can only be adopted if it secures a majority of votes in parliament. May doesn't want to do that, because she knows, as happened with the various proposals over Lords reform, there would be no majority for either proposal put forward, which would mean the government would have no democratic basis on which to proceed, which would then mean the matter could only be resolved, by either a General Election or another referendum. Because the Tories have had no clue about what they wanted for the last two years, and have little more of a clue even today, the process has dragged on for so long, that in the event of the above situation, requiring a General Election or Referendum to resolve the issue, it would mean that the UK would immediately have to apply for an extension of the Article 50 period. That would mean that the chances of Brexit not happening would increase substantially, because the longer this farrago continues, the more people will see the lunacy of Brexit, and the truth about the lies the Brextremists told them.
If all else failed, as I wrote a while ago, if May refuses to hold a democratic parliamentary vote that enables MP's to vote for choices other than her deal or No Deal, then Labour should vote against the deal, and if that means voting for No Deal, as the only other option given to them, they should do so. They should do so, whilst making clear exactly why they have been forced by May to vote in that way. They should so so whilst organising a mass public campaign against such a No Deal Brexit, and demanding a General Election. It should be backed up by strikes called by the TUC, and mass acts of civil disobedience, against the growing authoritarianism of the Tory government.
As part of that campaign Labour should point out that they have set out all along that Brexit would be a disaster for the working-class, and being forced to choose between a Chequers based Deal or No Deal, is a choice between being shot or strangled, and so its better to be shot, and get it over with quickly. The fact is that if Labour makes clear its opposition to Brexit, and the disastrous effect it will have on workers, if the Tories push through a No Deal Brexit, because Labour is given no other credible alternative, then the blame for that Brexit will fall squarely on the Tories. The information coming out daily, even from the government, is showing just how catastrophic things will be very shortly after a No Deal Brexit. The Tories will be destroyed as a party as a result of the ensuring chaos, and what is left of them will be unable to recover for more than a generation. In the meantime, it would mean that Labour would have to pick up the pieces, and begin to renegotiate a re-entry into the EU, to end the chaos. It would mean Britain re-entering on much worse terms, and having to commit to joining the Eurozone, Schengen and so on, as well as losing its rebate.
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