Theresa May says that she will not revoke Article 50, but her and her government's incompetence, and arrogance means she will almost certainly have to.
Parliament has twice rejected May's Withdrawal Agreement, by record majorities. It has also voted not to allow a No Deal Brexit. May has left it until the last minute to ask the EU for an extension of Article 50, leaving the EU increasingly frustrated at the incompetent way in which the British government has gone about the negotiations. Even today, the EU are asking when the British government might get round to actually asking for the extension of Article 50, and providing some information, on what exactly it is that Britain desires the extension for.
The EU have made it abundantly clear that, unless May has an agreed deal that simply needs to be implemented, there is no point in them giving a short extension to Article 50. But, of course, May, who has tried to ride roughshod over parliament, for the last three years, has no agreed deal, or any prospect of getting an agreed deal, as the massive majority against her existing deal showed. So, the EU is right, there is only a point in them giving a long extension to Article 50, so that Britain might have some hope of reaching some agreement on what it wants, so as to proceed. May is said to oppose the idea of a long extension to Article 50, and to be pursuing a request for a short extension to the end of June.
That is almost certainly, therefore, going to be turned down. May will have the choice between accepting a long extension, perhaps for two years, or getting no extension at all. A long extension will itself only be granted, by the EU, if May can show that the time will be used to arrive at some consensus on what Britain actually wants. That means that May will have to say that she will use the extension, in order to formulate some alternative suggestions, and to obtain a substantial mandate for them. Its unlikely, as the last three years have shown, that any substantial agreement is going to be reached by the current parliament. The reason May called the 2017, General Election was that she thought, on the basis of the polls, and the fact that the Labour Right were doing all in their power to undermine Corbyn, that she would obtain a landslide majority, enabling her to push through her Brexit agenda. In fact, it turned out that the Labour Right had misjudged the state of play as regards Labour voters, and their support for Corbyn, but also May had misjudged the degree to which voters had reacted to the Brexit vote, causing a groundswell of anger by Remain voters, who flocked to Labour as the only credible party capable of restraining a hard Brexit, and potentially stopping Brexit altogether.
If a referendum were to be held today, Remain would win by a substantial margin. That is because there has been a significant demographic change since 2016. Millions of old voters, who overwhelmingly voted Brexit, have died, whilst millions of young voters, who overwhelmingly back Remain have joined the electorate. In 2016, it was a hardcore of mostly elderly nationalists and bigots that had a bee in their bonnet about foreigners that pushed through the Brexit vote. A lot of Remain voters thought, as did most of the establishment - including most of the leading Brexiteers, who thought they could make outlandish promises they would never have to implement - that Leave would never win the referendum, and so did not bother to vote. Today, it is Remain voters that are angry and mobilised, as shown by the three-quarters of a million of them that turned out on the People's Vote march. By contrast, the self promoting Farage, is long past even being yesterday's man; his former UKIP vehicle has been reduced to a shell that houses an assorted bunch of racists from the EDL, BNP etc.; Farage himself has dreamed up his march from the North-East, which started out as a sad rag-bag of a couple of dozen die-hards, that, within 24 hours, had shrunk, even from that pathetic spectacle; Leave Means Leave, can only leave it to UKIP to mobilise a couple of thousand EDL/BNP thugs for their demonstrations. The dynamic is now entirely with the Remainers and against the Leavers. Just as Trump's victory in the US, rallied the left, who have been mobilised ever since, leading to left-wing candidates being selected to stand for the Democrats, and has led to those candidates being elected to Congress, in last year's elections, so the Brexit vote, has had a similar effect in mobilising the progressive anti-Brexit forces against it. In another referendum, Remain will win by around a 60:40 majority.
But, for that reason, May will resist calls for another referendum to the end. Instead, she will rely on mobilising that same core vote that pushed through Brexit, and which forms the basis of the Tories own core vote. Rather than calling another referendum, which she knows she would lose, she will call a General Election, which all indications are she would win. She would win a General Election, because of the useless leadership and strategy that has been provided by Labour. Whilst May can rally her core vote, by adopting a hard Brexit stance, Labour, by itself continuing to stand on a pro-Brexit position, risks losing much of its own core vote, plus all those other voters that came to it in 2017. There is no longer any point in voters, who oppose Brexit, voting Labour, because Corbyn and his front bench continually proclaim their intention to continue to pursue this anti-working class, reactionary agenda, which the last three years have, in any case, shown to be a fool's errand.
So, May will be told by the EU that it is no extension of Article 50, or a long extension, on the basis that she calls an election or a referendum, to obtain a workable mandate for some agreed position. May's strategy appears to be, therefore, to come back to parliament next week, having been given this ultimatum, and to again try to bully MP's into agreeing her deal. The line is already being indicated by sections of the Tory media. The line is this. Labour MP's, and other Remainers have continually described what a catastrophe a No Deal Brexit would be. So, faced with the choice, on March 28th. of May's Deal or a No Deal crash out, those Labour MP's will have no choice but to bite their lip, and back May's deal. May would then go back to the EU, in a midnight flight, to get a short extension to Article 50 to push through the legislation.
But, ERG supporters, want a No Deal Brexit, so May's threat to them is no threat at all. May's, gamble, therefore, relies on Remainer Tories, and Labour MP's being bullied into voting through her bad deal. But, there is, in fact, no reason they would do that. For Labour MP's to vote that way to keep a Tory government in office would be to commit political suicide. Their local members would be quick to deselect them for having done so. But, those Labour MP's must also know, as I have set out over the last year, and as May's current behaviour demonstrates, that the "Vote For My Deal, or I'll Blow My Brains Out" logic is an obviously empty threat. If, on March 28th., MP's, as they almost certainly will, vote down whatever version of May's Deal, she might be able to put before parliament, then it's quite clear that, immediately after, the consequence will not be that Britain will collapse out of the EU, but will be that May will have to use an Order in Council, to revoke Article 50. She will have to do so so, precisely she knows that crashing out of the EU without a deal would lead to immediate chaos, and a state of emergency. It would quickly result in hostility to the idea of Brexit, and to those that have pushed it, reaching a fever pitch, with the government quickly being hounded from office, and condemned to the wilderness for at least a generation.
It would mean that a General Election would have to be called, which Labour would win by a landslide. Unfortunately for Corbyn, having been associated with the failed and disastrous Brexit fiasco, it would probably mean that his days as Labour Leader were also numbered. Power would fall into the laps of all those Blair-right MP's who should have been consigned to history, but who will have been resurrected, due to Corbyn's disastrous strategy of pushing the reactionary nationalist agenda of Brexit, and of "Social-Democracy In One Country."
So, May, whatever she, and the Tory media, might want to pretend, so as to gain Labour MP's votes, would not push through a No Deal Brexit, if her proposal is again voted down. But, in again trying to push that hopeless bluff, up to the last minute, May will have left herself with no option but to revoke Article 50, which, in any case, she has been mandated to do by Parliament, which has rejected a No Deal Brexit.
Of course, May, presented with the choice of no extension to Article 50, or a two year extension, on the basis of an election, would accept the latter. In that case, we can expect, as I have said previously, that May will essentially drop her current deal, and go for a negotiated No Deal. That would mean that she would then propose that Britain negotiate a Canada style free trade agreement with the EU. That meets the requirements of the ERG and Tory base, not to be in the Customs Union and Single Market, enables them to negotiate their own trade deals, and to put an end to free movement, and the jurisdiction of the ECJ. But, such an arrangement is not compatible with the Good Friday Agreement, because that requires Northern Ireland to be in the Single Market, so as to ensure the same regulatory regime as exists in the Republic. So, May, as she had originally agreed last year, with the EU, would have to throw the DUP under the bus. She would have to agree to carve out Northern Ireland from this deal, agreeing to a different set of conditions in Northern Ireland to those in the rest of Britain. If, as she had hoped in 2017, she got a working majority, she could do that, because she would no longer be dependent upon the troublesome votes of the DUP.
But, what happens in the General Election is still itself up for grabs. Currently, Corbyn, is continuing to push the disastrous line that Labour would itself seek to push through Brexit. But, just as left-wing activists in the US, have been getting selected to stand, and getting elected as Democrats, as the response to Trump unfolds, so the forces unleashed by Brexit, that led ultimately to the surge in Labour membership, will make itself felt on Corbyn's leadership. Either Corbyn will himself have to change position, or get rolled over by the membership. Two years ago, he managed to bureaucratically stop conference debating Brexit; last year with a massive groundswell of opinion demanding a change of line, he again managed to bureaucratically get the fudged composite through, with the help of McCluskey; but now the anger at his continued obfuscation and failure to follow the wishes of the vast majority of party members, and voters is rising. There will be a demand for an emergency conference to change party policy to oppose Brexit, or at least to demand another referendum, with the party backing Remain.
If May, calls an election, then the question of the referendum option disappears. It will be a straightforward matter of party members demanding that Labour fight the election on the basis of revoking Article 50, and stopping Brexit. Only on that basis does Labour have a chance of winning the coming election. The sooner Labour shifts to that position, so as to mobilise its forces the better.
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