There’s just one tiny problem. It is now close on two years since Brexit was decided and 18 months since May became Prime Minister. How is it possible for a competent leader to agreeing the way forward so very late in the day?
The only explanation is that May didn’t want to face up to the reality of her party’s deep divisions and knew that the only way she could lurch along in power for a bit longer was to delay making any meaningful decisions and hope that she could muddle through.
Her Chancellor insists that we must follow all EU regulations for another two years at least. Her Foreign Secretary insists that we won’t. Both can’t be right. But the confusion doesn’t end there. Michael Gove is busy telling farmers that we won’t be importing cheap mass-produced food from the US that is soaked in antibiotics. Other Cabinet members are busy telling voters that one of the key advantages of leaving will be cheaper food because of lower tariffs. Those two views are simply incompatible. Her Minister Responsible for Northern Ireland is telling us that there will be no customs borders on the Island of Ireland under any circumstances. The free trade faction is telling us that we can’t wait around and we must diverge from the EU rapidly and sign new customs deals with the rest of the world. Either of those positions is quite tenable. Both of them at once is not. Unless you support freedom of movement for smugglers.
We therefore desperately need clarity on which of these policies she will adopt, what the transition looks like, what government policy will be out of the EU, and how far the government is willing to align with EU policies in order to ensure access to EU markets. Good, bad or indifferent we need to know what the policy is and there is no time left for dither.
Don’t hold your breath. Dithering and confusion are the specialities of this government. Briefings have been issued to the press that everyone in the cabinet has gone away from the crucial meeting happy and in full agreement. That can only be possible if once again no meaningful decisions have actually been taken and the can has just been kicked a little further up the road.
The current UK government has given up on facing hard realities and has decided instead to base its strategy on naïve hope. So we are being told that we can align our regulations with the EU voluntarily and that will get us access to the single market without borders. Despite the fact that no country in the world has ever done a trade deal with another without hard guarantees being clearly written down and subject to arbitration. And we are also being told that we can deal with the Northern Ireland border issue via imaginative approaches to customs documentation that remove the need for border checks. Something which has never been done anywhere in the world and which there is no serious preparatory work underway about how it will be done, when it can be implemented and what paperwork or software needs to be ready.
May seems determined to avoid making necessary decisions. She prefers to wait as long as she can and hope that a way forward emerges naturally. That is a desperately worrying flaw in a Prime Minster at any time. In the middle of difficult negotiations where hundreds of people need to be briefed and then go into committee rooms to fight for the needs of people in the UK it is difficult to think of a more damaging flaw.
To give credit to Jeremy Corbyn he tried hard to expose this flaw in Parliamentary Questions this week. He asked May to explain what her position was on the single market. She couldn’t answer. He asked her about the Norther Ireland border. She couldn’t answer. And he asked her about de-regulation and a race to the bottom post Brexit. Once again she couldn’t answer.
All of which should have been enough to finish off a leader of a minority government. When the Prime Minister can’t answer the most basic questions about the government’s policy on the key issues of the day it is usually only a matter of time before that government falls. Yet May was able to fail to answer every one of Corbyn’s questions without any real consequences.
The key reason for this is that everyone knew the Labour Leader also couldn’t answer the key questions about Brexit. Corbyn has said very clearly that he wants to deliver Brexit. Only his will be a jobs first Brexit. He hasn’t said how he intends to achieve this. If the UK abandons free movement of EU labour then it loses access to the single market and gets a jobs loss Brexit. Yet Corbyn seems remarkably reluctant to state a clear position on freedom of movement of labour. If he says he is in favour of it then he is worried that he will lose a lot of traditional Labour voters who hate EU immigration. If he says he is opposed to it then he’ll lose much of his support from voters in the crucial London borough elections in May.
We therefore have the strange sight of both major political parties being led by people who say they are firmly committed to delivering Brexit but won’t tell us exactly how they intend to do this. We are little over a year away from the leaving date and critical decisions are being fudged and avoided on both sides of the house with remarkable dexterity.
It is bad enough to live in a country where the government of the day can’t make clear decisions about the big issue of the day. It is even worse when the opposition of the day is every bit as badly split and confused.
It is enough to make anyone despair of the two main ruling parties and to look around for an alternative. In case you are interested the Green Party continues to insist that there should be an in out referendum on the final deal and that we should ditch the whole nonsense of Brexit and start working on reforming the EU and other international bodies to make them fit for the future. That is what I call a coherent and decisive policy.