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Well. It’s all – somewhat, I suspect, to everyone’s relief – gone terribly quiet. Almost as if the accumulated exhaustion, a welcome Easter break and that lengthy article 50 extension until 31 October have combined to take the wind out of Brexit’s sails.
It would be a mistake, though, to think it’s gone away. It really hasn’t. So Brexit talks between government ministers and Labour to find a compromise able to win MPs’ backing resumed last week, but expectations of a breakthrough were minimal.
Rumours that Theresa May – who still hopes a deal will be ratified in time to avoid the UK taking part in EU elections next month – would table a vote on the key legislation enacting Britain’s exit from the EU as early as next week proved unfounded.
Labour complained the government would not contemplate substantive changes to the deal’s political declaration (on Britain’s future relationship with the EU), instead proposing greater assurances on environmental standards and workers’ rights in a redrafted withdrawal act implementation bill.
And amid a growing sense of political paralysis in Westminster, the prime minister suffered a further blow to her authority as backbench Tory MPs, while stopping short of changing the party’s rules to allow her to be ousted within weeks, demanded a “roadmap” for her departure whether her deal passes or not.
Away from the Conservatives, the former Ukip leader Nigel Farage – whose new Brexit party leads the polling for the European elections – said he aimed to build on the momentum of the 26 May vote to get rid of what he termed a “remain parliament”.
Meanwhile, Labour faced a Brexit crisis of its own after a campaign leaflet in the south-west of England sparked fury among the party’s remainer beckbenchers and members by failing to mention a second referendum, which they say is now official party policy.
Jeremy Corbyn said Labour would decide this week what to put in its election manifesto, while the shadow business secretary, Rebecca Long-Bailey, reckoned it could sign up to a Brexit deal without a second vote if the talks made progress soon.
The Labour MPs behind parliament’s push for a confirmatory referendum wrote to their party’s governing body demanding it use the elections to campaign for a fresh poll regardless of whether a deal has been reached with the government.
What next?
It’s anyone’s guess. May survived the backbench attempt to call a second no confidence vote, but few believe she can dodge having to fight the EU elections – with the prospect of going up against Farage’s Brexit party infuriating Tory MPs.
There is acknowledgement the government must, however, attempt something new before the elections, and if the cross-party talks fail to advance it may try to devise a way to forge a compromise through a small number of new indicative votes.
May could be challenged, including by cabinet ministers, if she agrees to a closer customs arrangement as a way of getting Labour to back her deal. And if, as expected, the Tories are humiliated in local elections and then overwhelmed by the Brexit party in the European vote, she could yet decide to go of her own accord.
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Top comment
The Guardian’s editorial on the state of the Conservative party pulled no punches, saying it was being destroyed by Brexit:
Many ministers seem to have returned to Westminster this week blinded by the ambition to succeed Theresa May. Much of the Tory party returned with only one idea – a leadership challenge which would solve nothing whatsoever about Brexit and could easily trigger a general election in which the Tories could be massacred. It is said that those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad. This seems to be true of the modern Conservative party. Driven crazy by the failure of Brexit and obsessed with the stupid fantasy that a more doctrinaire leader than Mrs May would be more successful than she is, much of the party today displays all the dignity and judgment of a headless chicken. The Tory party used to pride itself on being the natural party of government. Today it is proving itself unfit for government at all.
Matthew d’Ancona reckoned Nigel Farage was – as he had long predicted – being fuelled by the myth of Brexit betrayal, enabling a new movement to rise up amid the anger:
The political class has strained every tendon to find a way of delivering the undeliverable: extracting the UK from a 46-year relationship without wrecking its prosperity, security and access to the wider world. Brexit has failed because that square-circling task is impossible. But Farage appeals to a primal social instinct: that the few are, yet again, cheating the many of their dream. It is not the dream that is at fault, you understand, but those who sabotage it. Just as Marxists insist true communism has never been tried, so Brexiteers declare that their simple plan has been wrecked by weaklings, quislings and fools. Brexit was designed by its most passionate supporters to fail: its purpose was to be betrayed, to enable a new movement to rise up, animated by fury and fear. Such a movement has now been born. It is already tearing the Conservative party to pieces. That, sad to say, is only the beginning of its plan.
Top tweet
A somewhat despairing plea from one of the Tory party’s most committed Brexiters:
Please don't let Brexit put you off voting Conservative in the Local Elections on Thursday. https://t.co/vVeUFjfPJq
— Jacob Rees-Mogg (@Jacob_Rees_Mogg) April 29, 2019
