May's Gamble Has Failed

Theresa May is a gambler. But, as with most of her other traits, she is a bad one. She gambled in her negotiations with the EU, bluffing, with an empty hand, that the card counters from the EU knew, all along, was empty. She bluffed the UK parliament with her threat to push through a No Deal Brexit, if they did not agree her deal, but MP's knew, all along, that it was also an empty threat, as to carry it out would be to send Britain into a death spiral, for which she, and the Tories, would take the blame. Never learning from any of these lessons, she put her deal to parliament over and over again, expecting a different result, even though it was voted down by huge majorities. As the last throw of the dice she has now offered to throw herself on her sword, if only the Tory Party will back her deal. Those Tories for whom the chance of taking over the Leadership is more important than being seen to act consistently, have been swayed, but, unfortunately, for May, even this last throw of the dice has failed, as the DUP, and a still sizeable chunk of the ERG refuse to back her bad deal. 

The problem for May, is not just that her deal is a bad deal that has little support in parliament, or in the country. Her problem is that which has afflicted the Tory Party for the last 40 years. The vast bulk of the party membership, made up of small capitalists, mostly the smallest of the small, seek to turn the clock back. They want Britain to resemble the world they inhabit, of sharp practices as the way of making a buck, of low wages and poor conditions, with no regulations, so that they can maximise their profits. They want the British capitalist state to protect them from foreign competitors, and from domestic unions and socialists. These are the class forces that stand behind Brexit, and behind the ERG, who far from being extremists, within the Tory Party, represent its mainstream. But, the Tory Party, as a prospective party of government, also has to inhabit the real world, in which the fortunes of the economy, whatever the propaganda they might promote in regards the small business myth, is determined not by those small businesses, but by the huge oligopolies, whose operations are dependent upon the very planning and regulations, not just at a national, but an international level, that the small capitalists, and their Brexiter representatives abhor. 

May's problem, as with all Tory Prime Ministers is trying to reconcile these two irreconcilable forces at war with each inside the party. That was bad enough when May became Prime Minister with a small majority, inherited from Cameron, but it became impossible, when she lost the 2017 election, and then had to contend with the added complication of reliance on the DUP. May's dilemma, all along, has been that if she concedes to the majority in her party, and to the ERG, which she began by doing in setting out her red lines in the Lancaster House speech, that soon runs up against reality, and she is then forced to backtrack on those commitments, whilst trying to pretend that “nothing has changed”. In the case of her red lines, to reject being inside the Customs Union and Single Market, set out, at the beginning, at Lancaster House, it meant that this ran up against both the desire of the Remainer wing of her party to retain a close relationship with the EU, as vital to Britain's future, and against the EU/Ireland, which pointed out that such a commitment was incompatible with the Good Friday Agreement, which requires that Northern Ireland have the same regulatory regime as the EU/Ireland, so as to ensure frictionless trade between the two, so as to remove the need for any border. 

As May rowed back, she showed what a poor politician and negotiator she is, because, now reliant on the votes of the DUP, she immediately through the DUP under the bus, by agreeing to a backstop in which Northern Ireland would remain inside the Customs Union and Single Market, requiring a border down the Irish Sea, which Unionists rightly saw as the first step towards Northern Ireland being cut adrift, and its reunification with the Republic. Dependent on DUP votes, May was then quickly forced to change course once again, now trying to square the circle by making the backstop one which covers the whole of Britain. But, that necessarily meant alienating the ERG, and the vast bulk of Tory members, for whom continued membership of the Customs Union and Single Market is anathema, and the whole point of Brexit – many of them may also share the xenophobia of the other layers of society attendant upon the Tory Party, and those to its right, for whom Brexit was about stopping immigration, but for the small capitalist wing of the Tories, it is the ability to cut themselves free from EU regulations, workers rights and so on that is most determinant. 

It's quite clear that the backstop can only be removed if some agreement is reached, between Britain and the EU, that ensures the requirements of the backstop, for the same regulatory regime in Northern Ireland with that in the EU, can be found. All the talk about technology, at the border are irrelevant, from that perspective. The fact is that the same regulatory regime can only be achieved if Northern Ireland remains inside the Single Market and Customs Union. So, the ERG are quite right to say that the backstop ties Britain into the Single Market and Customs Union indefinitely, because the only way to remove the backstop, is for Britain to actively seek to be a permanent member of the Single Market and Customs Union! And, the DUP are quite right to distrust the Tories, on this matter, because they have every reason, on the basis of the way the negotiations have gone so far, to think that the Tories will throw them under the bus, if it's necessary to get Brexit and keep the rest of Britain outside the Single Market and Customs Union. If May had had a majority in December 2017, when she agreed, with the EU, to have only N.I. in the backstop, she would have pushed it through, then. It was only her need for DUP votes that stopped her. 

The DUP has no reason to back May's plan, therefore, because they have every reason to believe that, in the subsequent negotiations, they would be thrown under the bus, as May showed she would do, in December 2017. But, May's offer to resign once her plan is passed only complicates matters further. If May stands down, once her plan is endorsed by parliament, say in May 2019, then the Tory Prime Minister that actually takes over the negotiations on the important part of the deal will almost certainly be a Brextremist. The front runners are Gove and Bojo. Gove has already set out his strategy and reason for staying in the Cabinet and backing May's plan. It is that once Britain is formally out of the EU, all bets are off. 

In the current stage of negotiations, parliament eventually grabbed some power back to exercise some control over the process, but in the next stage of negotiations, should Brexit happen, it would have no such control. Power passes almost exclusively to the executive. It's quite clear that a Brextremist Prime Minister will start by cutting the ties of Britain with the EU, ending any prospect of being in the Customs Union, or close to, let alone in, the Single Market. Those right-wing Labour MP's, like Caroline Flint, who have always been prepared to take a hard line on immigration, and thereby blame foreigners for the ills of British capitalism, and so appease the bigots in their own electorates, are either fools or willing dupes, if they cover their support for Tory Brexit by saying that they are convinced by the Tories pledges to defend workers rights. These are the same same Tories that have sought to extract Britain from the existing EU regulations protecting those rights; who have argued for Britain's labour laws to be tightened even further, despite them already being the most restrictive in Europe; who have called for strikes in the public sector to be banned; who have demanded that strike ballots must get more than 50% of those entitled to vote, rather than just a simple majority of those voting; who have introduced charges for industrial tribunals; and so on ad nauseam. The whole purpose of these Tories seeking Brexit, as they have themselves said previously, is to have a bonfire of regulations, turning Britain into an equivalent of Cuba under Batista in the 1950's. Indeed, being able to push through such measures is another reason that the Tory right have been driving forward the ideas of authoritarianism, and a strong state, of driving ever closer towards some form of Bonapartism. 

And, the consequences of that are clear. Whatever the Bretremists claim about not imposing a border in Northern Ireland, the fact is that if a Gove or Bojo, quickly moves to separate Britain from the EU Single Market and Customs Union, as part of some quixotic desire to create a free market, free trade nirvana, the reality, in Ireland, will be, as I wrote recently, that it will create a smugglers paradise, with goods and people flooding across the Irish border into the North, on their way into mainland Britain. In contrast, despite what the EU and Ireland has to say for now, that they too do not want to introduce a border, they will first have to impose tariffs on Northern Irish goods and services each time they cross the border, with a devastating impact on the Northern Irish economy, that would quickly be followed by the imposition of border checks on goods and people, and so the introduction of a hard border. It would massively increase the chances of a border poll, resulting in a reunification of ireland.  The DUP, obviously see the consequences of that, and the likelihood that, for all their current protestations, a Tory government, no longer dependent on DUP votes to get its Brexit deal passed, would again throw them under the bus, introducing a border in the Irish Sea, and increasingly casting Northern Ireland adrift. 

So, it is no wonder that the DUP have not been attracted to vote for May's Plan, with its offer for her to resign. But, May is also trapped in the same old dilemma. By offering to resign, she hoped to bring on board the Brextremists, given a nod and a wink that, once Britain is officially out, they can let rip, with one of their own in charge. But, the Remainer wing inside the Tory Party, as they have all along, also see these nods and winks to the Brextemists. They are not a blind horse, and each time May picks up a couple of votes on her right flank, by such gestures, she loses a couple on her left flank. If Tory Remainers, believe that her offer to resign is her giving an open invitation for the Brextremists to put one of their own in Number 10, then more of them will vote against her plan, even if they are not led to join the Tiggers in their slow decline into oblivion. 

Moreover, whilst a handful of right-wing Labour MP's like Caroline Flint, John Mann and the other usual suspects, might still be prepared to vote with May, their actions will be seen as the scabbing it is. As Labour members see the inevitability that Brexit will simply lead to a hard right, Brextremist sitting in Number 10, the more they will pressure such scabbing MP's to come into line, including the threat of deselection, in short order. So, the chances of May's plan being approved are probably declining rather than growing. That is why she did not put it up for voting on in the indicative votes, along with the other options, because she knows it would have scored badly. 

In those indicative votes, Ken Clarke's proposal for Britain to remain in the Customs Union scored highly, with only a majority of 4 against it. That is because, although it differs negligibly from Labour's proposal, and so Labour whipped to back it, all of the Tories that also backed Clarke's proposal, would instinctively vote against Labour's plan, which also suffers from being confused, unclear, and impossible to achieve. The largest number of votes were cast for the proposal to subject any deal to another referendum, but there was also large scale support for simply revoking Article 50. Had Labour whipped in support of that option, rather than whipping against it, it could have had the largest number of votes of any option. 

The most likely outcome of the votes next week, are then that parliament might vote for a deal involving remaining in the Customs Union, but with the proviso that any deal be subject first to another referendum. May will not agree to either, as she has made clear. That means that she will call a General Election, and she will request that the EU give a further extension of Article 50 for that purpose. Such an extension is likely to have to be at least until the end of the year, and possibly for two years. I expect that, in that event, she will fight the election on the basis of a hard Brexit, in which she will use the extended Article 50 period to negotiate a “managed no deal”, whereby the UK would negotiate bilateral agreements on aviation, drug licensing and so on, with the intention of then negotiating a Canada style FTA. 

The question then is, what Labour's stance will be in that General Election. At the moment, Corbyn continues the line that Labour will itself argue for Brexit, and negotiations after the election on that basis. If that continues to be the case, Labour will lose the election badly. May will get a workable majority, and will push through her proposals. The fact that Labour spokespeople continue to prevaricate, and hide behind the nonsense that the Manifesto will only be determined by the Clause 5 meeting, is a bad sign. It means that the chances are that Labour will fight the election on its current reactionary pro-Brexit agenda. That means many of Labour's core voters, that strongly oppose Brexit, will be demoralised, and look, where possible, to vote for anti-Brexit candidates as an alternative. It will demoralise Labour's activists, leaving them with a contradictory, and confusing message to try to sell on the doorstep. It will open the door once again to the Blair-rights, who have been allowed to present themselves as the only opponents of Brexit, and will, thereby open the door to their champion, Watson, to organise his party within a party to remove Corbyn from office, and begin the process of purging, the left from the party. 

That is why, we need an emergency LP conference, so as to replace the current confused and inadequate Composite agreed in 2017, with a clear statement of the party's opposition to Brexit, and its intention to Revoke Article 50, once elected.