OK, I'm going to (probably foolishly) have a punt at gaming out what happens in Brexit in the next few weeks. I will certainly be wrong – there are just too many variables to be completely right – but I’d like to test my thinking /thread
I feel emboldened by mince pies and ahem, good cheer, so I’d welcome your thoughts on what seems off key here — and just to be clear, I’m not advocating this sequence of events, I’m just trying to work out what might happen
So Theresa May brings her Brexit deal for a vote the week of 14 January as she has promised (surely she wouldn’t attempt to delay again). She loses, prompting calls for her to resign, for a renegotiation and for a people’s vote.
In the process, MPs vote heavily in favor of an amendment denouncing a no deal Brexit. At this point, the choices are: May resigns (not the style of a “duty” politician); May pivots to Norway (seems impossible since it would trash her red lines); or…
As seems most likely, May engages in another round of frantic diplomacy with EU leaders who now see that the deal as it stands is politically unsellable in the UK. There will be more warm words and a few more small concessions. But…
I can’t see them moving fundamentally on the backstop. It serves more than one purpose, but it is there primarily to maintain the peace on the Irish border. Nothing we’ve seen so far suggests that the EU will back down
on the essential nature of the backstop ie that it is guaranteed to operate under all circumstances — unless there is an alternative that has the same effect of preventing the need for border checks.
May ploughs on and brings her slightly revised deal back to the Commons where it is defeated again despite the raised political pressure of the 29 March deadline. The DUP and many Brexiteers won’t wear it with the backstop still in place.
So we’re 5-6 weeks further down the line, but May’s deal has been comprehensively ruled out by MPs. What then? May could resign (again not her style) or pivot to Norway (she doesn’ think that is Brexit because it keeps free movement).
May understands the damage of no deal, and knows that MPs will fight to prevent it (emboldened by their previous cross-party amendment). She has ruled out again and again going back to the people to ask if they want to stay in the EU after all…
But, would she be tempted to go over MPs’ heads and put her deal to the people. That was effectively her strategy ahead of the December 11 vote that never was – why not go the whole hog?
She could convincingly argue it was not a second referendum as such because the question on the ballot would not be whether the UK leaves, but how it leaves: A choice between her deal and no deal.
Of course, this would require an extension of Article 50 (which the EU would most likely grant as long as it didn’t interfere with the European Parliament election). But it would also cause political uproar in UK.
MPs would argue that May was trying to offer the people the same “cake or death” choice that she had wanted to offer MPs. Remainers — who have felt the political ground shifting towards a second vote in recent months — will be up in arms.
There would be a massive political fight over the ref question that could well result in Remain on the ballot. At which point … May would resign. She has set her entire premiership up around delivering Brexit and not allowing a 2nd in-out ref. That wd be the final straw.
Then Britain would need a temporary PM to get through the referendum — perhaps someone who pledged not to take a side.
What happens next would depend on the result and who is left standing…
What happens next would depend on the result and who is left standing…
