There has been much huffing and puffing in Tory ranks about Theresa May's approach to Corbyn over Brexit. But, so far, none of the leading Brexiteers in her Cabinet have resigned. The reason, as I set out a few days ago, is that the whole purpose of the seven hour long strategising of the Cabinet, was to come up with a clever plan to entrap Labour. May has actually come up with a win-win strategy.
Her basic objective is to run down the clock further, so that Britain does not hold EU elections. If she achieves that, then Britain, one way or another, has to leave on May 23rd. If you do not elect MEP's, then, according to EU law, you cannot be in the EU. Not even revoking Article 50, becomes an option at that stage. So, unless Britain agrees to hold EU elections, by next Friday, 12th April, Britain will have to leave the EU, by May 23rd. The only question will be whether it crashes out of the EU at that date, or whether the UK agrees to May's Deal, which she has so far failed to come even close to getting through parliament, after three attempts. Given that Labour has consistently said that it could not allow a No Deal Brexit to happen, it would have trapped itself into having to pass May's Deal. So a win for May.
In actual fact, the cleverness of May's strategy is that she knows that such a result would not at all upset Corbyn, who continues to support Brexit. It would give him cover, by blaming the Tories for pushing through Brexit by such means, in which, in actual fact, he would have been complicit. And, here too is why the Brexiteers in May's Cabinet have not resigned. Gove's strategy all along has been to get the UK out of the EU, and then to push forward with their actual agenda. That agenda is to remove May, and to put a hardline, right-wing Brexiteer in her place, such as Gove, Bojo, or Rabb. The Brexiteers are not leaving May's Cabinet, at the moment, despite all of the furore over her speaking to Corbyn, because they know that this is simply part of a very clever strategy.
May will not agree to a Customs Union, or Single Market, or to another referendum, all of which are supposed red lines for Corbyn, in his discussions with May. If he drops those red lines, and basically supports May's Deal as it stands, thereby giving cover to right-wing Labour MP's to join him in getting May's Deal through parliament, it gives May what she wants. That is no need to hold EU elections, and Brexit. She may hope to hold on to her job, on the wave of Tory relief that she carried the day, but would only do so, if she became a willing hostage of the hard line Brexiteers, thereby pushing through their agenda, in the Stage 2 negotiations, that would essentially see Britain insisting on regulatory divergence, and so a collapse of the agreement, with Britain also then reneging on the Irish backstop.
It would have the added advantage that it would lead to open civil war in the Labour Party. Labour members have given Corbyn a lot of leeway, so far, in the way he has continually failed to act in the spirit of the Party policy, and against the overwhelming position of Labour members, in opposing Brexit. But, such a betrayal would push things too far. The main beneficiaries of that would be the Blair-right MP's, Councillors and so on, that Corbyn's leadership has continually failed to confront. In all such circumstances it is those that can provide leadership that pull in the forces behind them. The Blair-rights have the advantage of still massively dominating the PLP, and Council Chambers across the country. They have established links to media outlets, and money behind them. They also have a nascent alternative party structure, now established by their leader in parliament Tom Watson, who can claim his own democratic mandate.
The main obstacle for May in that, currently, appears to be that it will involve direct rule in Ireland, and an almost inevitable call for a border poll that might well result in a majority for a United Ireland. Yet, other Tories might not baulk at such a prospect, if it wins for them the larger goal of outright UK separation from Europe. The other factor tied to that is that it could well result in a similar call for Scottish Independence, and the break-up of the UK. But, the truth is that Brexit has all along been really a reactionary project of English nationalism, rather than British nationalism. Both Scotland and Northern Ireland voted overwhelmingly to Remain, Gibraltar voted more than 90% remain, and the latest polls show a clear majority for remain now in Wales, a fact that was reinforced by the Newport West By Election that saw, the votes of the clear anti-Brexit parties rise by 11.5%, compared to a fall of 8% for the Tories, and more than 12% for Labour, whilst, although UKIP recovered half of the vote it had lost to the Tories, in the last election, they still got less than 9%. The added bonus for the Tories, therefore, is that if Scotland became independent, it would tie in, for the foreseeable future, Tory majorities in parliament.
If May cannot get Corbyn to agree to her deal, she can still hold out the hope that by appearing to negotiate in good faith, she can run the clock down beyond April 12th. If she achieves that, she has also won, because then Brexit is a fait accompli. Labour would almost certainly then allow her deal to go through by abstaining, so as to avoid being held liable for a No Deal catastrophe. In fact, as I have written previously, if it were me, I would still oppose May's Deal, making clear that she bore the responsibility for No Deal, and the catastrophe that followed, as the almost immediate result would be a collapse of the Tory Party, demands for a General Election that would sweep them out of office, and enable Labour to approach the EU, for an emergency solution, based upon revoking Article 50, a solution the EU would undoubtedly be prepared to negotiate, and would enable it to use its whip hand, so as to remove all of the UK's current opt-outs from the Eurozone, Schengen and so on. But, Labour as a parliamentarist party would never do that. Labour would almost inevitably capitulate "in the national interest", and so May would get her way. Another win for May.
But, May may not get that far. Even if Labour frontbenchers are prepared to delude themselves about May's honest intentions, the EU are not. Tusk has made clear that any extension will have to be for a year, and will require the UK to undertake EU elections, unless a deal is reached by next Friday. So, if that is also entrenched in UK law, Britain will have to hold EU elections. May does not want that, because despite all of the claims about there being 73 Farage's elected to the European Parliament, the opposite is likely to be the case, as the Newport West By-Election showed. It is remainers that are mobilised, and why are the dynamic force with the wind in their sails. If Labour selects fervently anti-Brexit candidates for those elections, and goes out in a massive campaign, that it can now do with the support of Momentum, it can sweep the board. Where it does not field such candidates, a progressive alliance of Liberals, Greens, Plaid, SNP can achieve the saem result, and finish off the reactionary Brexiteers. But, Labour's leadership also does not want those elections for a similar reason. It will mean that Labour will have to come out with a clear programme in relation to Brexit, and Labour's attitude to Europe. It will be clear that the leadership are facing almost 180 degrees in the opposite direction to 90% of the party membership.
Faced with these conditions, then May, as I suggested at Christmas, will call a General Election. With Tory Remain MP's like Nick Boles, Dominic Grieve et al being deselected by the rank and file members, others will either come in to line to hold on to their jobs, or will jump ship to join the Small Change group. Either way, the Tory candidates going into such an election, will form a solid phalanx of hard right, Brextremists. Even May could rally them around a clear programme of leaving the EU on the basis of a managed No Deal, whereby over the next year, the UK agrees individual deals, with the EU, to cover essential relations, licencing and so on, to avoid the chaos that would result from a crash out Brexit. Given a clear Tory stance on Brexit, which is now by far the deciding electoral issue of the day, and given the confusion that reigns within Labour over Brexit, with the leadership still proposing to carry through its own impossible version of a "Jobs First Brexit", there is every chance that the Tories could win a working majority in such an election, and so be able to push through that agenda. Another win for May.
But, even if that were not to happen, the chances are that May still wins, or at least that the Tories win. In a snap General Election, with the Tories and the Tory media blaming Corbyn for Brexit not being implemented, with Corbyn himself keen to push ahead with Brexit, but constrained by the party membership, and with leading members of the Shadow Cabinet, like Ian Lavery, Angela Rayner, Rebecca Long-Bailey, and Richard Burgon all pushing a continuation of the reactionary pro-Brexit stance, there is every chance that Corbyn, with the support of McCluskey and others will push through the Clause 5 Meeting a manifesto based upon the ludicrous idea that Labour would remain committed to Brexit, but giving only some meaningless concession to the idea that it would put its deal to a referendum.
This again represents a win for May and the Tories. If by some amazing unforeseeable circumstance Corbyn was able to get such a Brexit deal passed, the Tories would have achieved their aim of getting Brexit, and if, as will undoubtedly be the case, the economic consequences of that quickly begin to materialise, it will be the Labour government that pushed it through parliament that will take the blame, making it, at most, a one term wonder. But, no one believes that Labour's Brexit proposals are credible, or that there is any chance of the EU agreeing to them. So, Labour would then be in the position of either having to capitulate to the EU, leaving it wide open to attack from the Tories, having already pissed off a large part of its membership and voter base for having pursued the reactionary Brexit agenda in the first place, or else it would, as now be faced with the choice of simply crashing out with no deal. The consequences of that would be no less, and almost certainly more catastrophic for Labour than for the Tories. It would be like the Tories ability to blame Labour for the 2008 Global Financial Crash, but magnified ten fold. It would see Labour hounded from office, and finished for a generation, and an end to the Corbyn project, and the prospects for the Left, for at least as long.
May's strategy is very clever. The sooner Corbyn and Labour walk away from it, and set out their own clear militant anti-Brexit position the better.
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