If the politics of recent years has taught us anything, it is that assumption truly is the mother of all screw-ups. Hillary Clinton assumed women would turn out for her against Donald Trump; David Cameron was sure he could not lose the EU referendum; and Theresa May reasoned she would walk the 2017 election.
So perhaps it is time to challenge another confident assumption underpinning a lot of the game theory around UK’s Brexit options: the assumption that Britain cannot crash out of the EU because there is no parliamentary majority for a no-deal outcome. No interview about Brexit is complete without this observation. The notion offered a rare moment of unity last week between Amber Rudd, the work and pensions secretary, and Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, who declared Labour would not allow a no-deal Brexit. Perversely this acts both as a warning to Brexiters to back the deal or face worse and as a spur to Remainers that they need not fear voting it down.
But while the analysis of the parliamentary arithmetic looks correct, the inference drawn is dangerously flawed. Not only can the UK crash out with no deal, it will do so unless that majority can unite around a viable alternative.
This is not to say a no-deal exit is the most likely outcome, but that avoiding it is not a given. For one thing, no deal is the default position. Without any further action, the UK’s membership of the EU will lapse on March 29 2019. At present there is only one certain route to avoiding a no-deal crash-out and that is Mrs May’s agreement.
However, MPs expect her plan to be voted down in mid-December. Many believe she will cling on and try again, terrifying waverers into support as the cliff-edge looms. But if she loses too heavily it may not be easy to bring the same plan back. Furthermore, she may not be there to do it. An intransigent, defeated prime minister standing by her deal might finally run out of road in her own party. Her successor will have little desire to revive it.
What then? When the mystical majority against no-deal emerges to avert the crisis of a cliff-edge Brexit? The problem is that this majority is split and the sides evince little enthusiasm for each other’s scheme. Tory waverers are drawn towards the Norway option (in which the UK joins the European Free Trade Association and retains access to the single market). Labour pro-Europeans are largely backing the “people’s vote”. Nationalist parties are likely to back either.
Around which option then do the “no no-dealers” unite? Norway, which might once have garnered majority support, will need more negotiation. It requires an add-on customs union to ensure a frictionless Irish border and might still face demands for an Irish backstop. It leaves Britain even more of a rule-taker, requires annual payments and loses the one tangible gain of taking back control of immigration. It is, however, an off-the-shelf soft Brexit.
Unfortunately, the largely Labour supporters of a second referendum, now disparage it as a distraction. It is, they suggest, too late for such a change of tack. They are going all out for their “double-or-quits” second vote and do not want to lose impetus by chasing other cats. Yet for all their impressive momentum, there may be up to two dozen Labour MPs who will not support it and it is not clear there are enough Tory backers to get it over the line.
Without co-ordination, the two “No no-deal” sides could end up shooting down their two best options. If Norway gains traction it kills the second referendum. But it would be quite a gamble to let everything else fail in the hope this delivers the numbers for a second vote.
The EU meanwhile has little incentive to agree to a freeze without a major shift of UK stance, election or second vote. So the exit clock continues to tick and hardliners are content to run it down. Unless parliament actively chooses another course, the UK will leave without a deal. It is not enough to say there is no majority for no deal; there has to be a majority for something else.
Thus the UK is heading for a period of phenomenal Brexit brinkmanship as the various groups try to advance their own solution at risk of losing all of them. If the May plan falls, the “No no-dealers” must unite around a single policy and do so quickly. If they cannot they will end up with a choice of the no-deal they insist cannot happen or resurrecting the prime minister’s unloved agreement. That is, of course, as long as there is someone in power willing to resuscitate it.
To return to that assumption then. There is no majority for no deal. It should not happen. We can end up there only through a combination of accident, hubris and intransigence. Given the past three years, are you reassured?
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