THERESA MAY’S Brexit tasks keep getting harder. She might have united the Tory party behind a common Brexit position ten days ago, but she now must pull off a series of even more difficult feats.
May needs to defeat a plan to rule out No Deal, knock back Brussels’ interest in Jeremy Corbyn’s soft-Brexit plan, get something out of an EU that wants to give her nothing, and persuade her own MPs to compromise and back a deal. Even Hercules would shudder at a to-do list like this.
May’s first task comes next week when she must defeat the Cooper amendment if it comes back to the Commons.
This amendment would compel the Government to ask for an extension to the negotiations if the UK and the EU cannot agree a deal in the coming weeks.
If Cooper passed, the EU would have no incentive to offer Mrs May anything.
They would know that her hands were tied and that she couldn’t walk away from the table even if she wanted to.
The good news for Mrs May is that she probably will defeat Cooper.
One Cabinet Minister says: “Our Remainers are calmer now than they have been for some time, even though the clock is ticking. They can see the shape of a deal.”
Backing this up, one minister who has been tipped to quit so they can vote for the Cooper amendment, tells me: “People like me feel she deserves the chance to roll the dice one more time.”
The Government had hoped that if they could defeat Cooper again, then they could eke a concession out of the EU.
But that aim has been complicated by Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexit offer, which suggests solving the backstop by a permanent customs union and close regulatory relationship with the EU.
This scheme, obviously, appeals to the EU: It keeps Britain very much in the EU’s economic sphere.
BACKSTOP BIND
“The Labour Party and the EU are operating in tandem to some extent, which is worrying for us,” frets one Cabinet minister.
So May needs to persuade Brussels that such a deal couldn’t get through because her Government would collapse as soon as she proposed it.
If May can persuade Tusk and Co of this, which is far from certain, she then needs to try to get legally binding changes to the backstop out of them.
This will be an even harder task.
The EU is not inclined to give her this, as one minister close to the talks laments, “They’re just very p***ed off with her”.
But the UK is not actually asking for that much.
As one Cabinet minister argues: “If it is legally implicit that the backstop cannot last more than five years, why not make that politically explicit?”
The reason is that the EU do not want to undermine the Irish government or give the UK a negotiating win.
But if offering the UK something on the backstop is the price of getting a deal through Parliament, the EU might – reluctantly – budge at the last moment.
What the EU won’t do is agree to replacing the backstop with “alternative arrangements” as many Tory MPs want. So, if May can get this far, she’ll then need to persuade her own MPs to compromise and back a deal.
CAN’T AFFORD TO FAIL
The challenges ahead for May are formidable. Like Hercules, she has — largely — made this trouble for herself.
If she had known what she had wanted when she triggered Article 50, if she had taken No Deal preparation more seriously, and if she hadn’t blown the Tories’ majority in an election she didn’t need to call, she would not be in this situation.
But now she is, she must succeed. A failure to deliver Brexit would catastrophically undermine faith in politics.
While splitting the Tory Party by adopting Corbyn’s plan would lead to a dangerous, left-wing government that would undermine Britain’s economy and national security.
PM needs Boris to be-leave in deal
BREXIT would not have happened but for Boris Johnson.
His decision to back Leave gave that campaign far greater reach than it otherwise would have had, which is one of the reasons why some Remainers are so obsessed with criticising him.
If Boris had done what Theresa May had done – backed Remain reluctantly – then history would have been very different.
But Brexit needs Boris again. If May is to get a deal through the Commons, it’ll need his backing.
For some Tory Brexit ultras, if May brings back anything other than the complete removal of the Irish backstop, it won’t be enough.
But Boris needs to persuade people to accept something less than that as the EU won’t offer it.
If May’s revised deal doesn’t pass when she brings it back, Brexit is only going to get softer.
In these circumstances, this country is going to end up in a customs union, at best, and as a non-voting member of the EU at worst.
If May returns with a legally binding change to the backstop and, in the words of one Tory Brexiteer, “Boris and [Dominic] Raab stand up in Parliament and say well done Prime Minister, it isn’t perfect but I’ll back it,” then my money is on the deal passing.
This well-placed source predicts that, with Boris and Raab backing it, the Brexiteer rebellion could be reduced to 20 or so – allowing a deal to pass if May can win over the DUP and a reasonable number of Labour rebels.
I understand that May and Boris have spoken recently. It would be difficult for the former Foreign Secretary to back a revised deal that would still be deeply flawed to him, but the likely alternatives to it are all worse.
Another dine mess, Hunt?
WILL Jeremy Hunt ever live down saying that his wife was Japanese, when she is actually Chinese?
At Wednesday night’s big Tory fundraising dinner, Theresa May joked to the assembled donors and Cabinet Minister that one of the lots on offer in the auction was a Japanese meal with Hunt or, based on past confusion, as he might call it, a Chinese meal.
All five eyes on Chinese spy firms
NEW rules on foreign investment in UK infrastructure will block the Chinese firm Huawei from future involvement in strategically significant UK technology projects, I am told.
The Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson and the National Security adviser and Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill are, I’m informed, all concerned about the role of the Chinese firm.
There are also worries that not clamping down on Chinese involvement could alienate other members of the Five Eyes, a vital intelligence network made up of the UK, the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
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One senior Government source tells me: “All Five Eyes partners have to face the same way.”
The US is particularly keen for the UK to take steps to limit Chinese investment in UK technology.
One of those close to the decision warns, “You’re going to have the choice of being a technical collaborator with the US, or with China. You’re not going to be able to do both.”
- James Forsyth is political editor of The Spectator.