That said it is worth reflecting on the expectations that have proved badly wrong and questioning why. My own worst prediction was that the Conservative Party simply couldn’t stay together as one single functioning entity because it was deeply split into two irreconcilable camps. I thought the practical voice of business section of the party had a directly contrary view of the world to the Brexit enthusiasts and that it was impossible for anyone to overcome that contradiction.
Instead they have remained together. I clearly seriously underestimated the extent to which their MPs worry about keeping their own seat if the party divides. I also underestimated the degree to which Theresa May would keep on kicking the can down the road in an attempt to avoid facing up to the consequences of the divisions within her own ranks. One of the central questions of the coming year will therefore be whether any Conservative leader can carry on reconciling the irreconcilable and succeed in dodging open warfare while attempting to govern the country. I continue to believe that there is a high chance that this won’t be possible but I might be wiser to pay more attention to naked self interest and expect them to find some way to wriggle through the next three months and survive as a party in government. I have a horrible feeling that the method might be called Sajid Javid and we might see more damaging years of UK policy not being driven by the needs of the nation but by what is possible to get past a disunited party.
My second worst prediction hasn’t actually been proved wrong yet. I believed for most of 2018 that the most likely thing to happen at the end of March 2019 was not very much. I have never believed that the real damage from Brexit would happen on day one and have tried to avoid alarmist messages about lorry queues and food stockpiles because if they don’t happen the Brexiteers will happily tell us we are foolish alarmists and that everything is going to carry on being fine. I believe much of the real damage will only come when we sign the first of the wonderful free trade agreements that we have been promised. Instead of being part of a single market under the messy limited control of the somewhat democratic EU we would then then shift to losing sovereignty to a series of different obscure international arbitration committees dominated by corporate lawyers. UK policy will be dictated to us by rulings handed down by shadowy committees which could easily allow US corporate lawyers to force the NHS open to competition from US health companies. We’ll also see UK policy in areas like agriculture forced to mimic appalling US practices of mass producing food soaked in chemicals and battery farmed pigs and cattle will become a cruel norm. On top of all that I expect Brexit to result in a slow and gradual decline in the relative strength of our economy as the impact on UK science and technology of losing access to almost all of the EU collaborative projects starts to work through. I worry that we’ll end up festering in an increasingly lonely and isolated backwater of empire nostalgia.
My belief that there is going to be a banal Brexit day in which a “not too bad” “compromise” comes into place without much immediately changing now looks vulnerable to being badly wrong. May’s “compromise” is so obviously worse than where we started that it is hard to see how anyone other than the most blindly loyal Conservative MP could possible vote for it with a straight face. Essentially it means that we follow all the EU rules without any say in them. We pay out a lot of money and we lose access to almost all of the collaborative projects which brought most of that money back to us. The only ‘benefit’ we get is an end to freedom of movement of population. Since we are in the middle of a labour shortage and a demographic time bomb that can only be solved by a sensible degree of immigration that isn’t exactly great compensation.
Any MP who thinks long and hard about the long term consequences for Britain of signing up to May’s deal isn’t likely to vote for it. Leavers simply see none of their mythical freedoms and a high price being paid for being shadow members of the EU. True believers are going to go all out to persuade us that a bit of pain from a hard exit is better than May’s deal. Remainers within the Conservative Party are also going to struggle to back her. If you believe the EU is good for business then how do you bring yourself to vote to get next to none of the benefits of membership, no votes over the rules but a requirement to follow those rules? So she could easily keep on failing to get enough support for her deal and that might lead us to crash out by accident. Cock ups happen a lot more frequently than conspiracies. However, the extent to which the country is utterly unprepared for this and the risks to the Conservative Party of carrying the blame for lorry queues at borders may yet force enough Conservatives through the lobbies in support of May. Provided of course that they can find any MPs from other parties to abstain or back them. But why on earth would any Labour MP do that when they can smell the blood in the water that might result from squabbling Conservatives going down to a series of self inflicted defeats?
In these circumstances my belief that there will be a last minute compromise that let’s business function as normal looks increasingly weak. The odds on an accidental crash out are shortening. Because of the obvious damage of that and the utter failure to prepare properly for it the odds on a delay of Brexit day also look to be coming down. We have a Parliament that is unlikely to have any difficulty on agreeing that it doesn’t like May’s deal but will have real difficulty on agreeing on what it does want.
In a logical world that would lead Parliament to put the whole mess back to the people and let them decide on whether they want no deal, May’s deal or remain using a simple single transferable vote system that allows people to vote 1st, 2nd and 3rd preference. No one can be certain of the outcome of such a vote but it is the only fair way to let the public decide what they think of the real deal on offer instead of only being allowed to express a view on what promises they liked the sound of two years before we knew the facts.
That brings me to the one safe prediction I did make last year that I still feel confident about. Jeremy Corbyn will never support the Labour Party voting for a Second Referendum. Without his backing the proposition cannot easily win enough votes to happen. He clearly thinks he has nothing to gain from it and wants to go all out for a General Election instead. I would love this prediction to be proved wrong because I believe a Second Referendum can be won and that it would pave the way for a major victory by progressive forces. In the absence of a Second Referendum I am less certain of the outcome of a General Election. I believe that Corbyn has lost a lot of support by coming across as more interested in gaining power than in helping the country out of the mess of Brexit. At the last election his main asset was that he came across as a genuine conviction politician who would stand up for ordinary people. How much of the enthusiastic support of the young is he going to retain if he becomes the main blockage preventing a Second Referendum and if the reason for this comes across as being a simple determination to get himself into power? Even more significantly where will progressive forces in the UK be if he gets into power after a chaotic collapse of the Conservatives and fails to deliver significant improvements because Brexit is starting to undermine the UK economy and he is trying to govern with no money and no unity?
All of which leaves me to make one final prediction for 2019. Cynicism about British politicians and British politics will continue to grow. A lot of older people have placed their faith in Brexit being a quick and easy cure all for their ills. It is going to make things worse. A lot of young people have placed their faith in Jeremy Corbyn finding a way out of the mess. They could be equally badly disappointed. In such circumstances the days of monolithic two party politics may be limited.