Key points
Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn backed a campaign to get more women to stand for parliament, before setting off on a Brexit-focused PMQs. Corbyn asked whether, now that ministers had said leaving the EU with no deal was not an option, May would confirm there were no circumstances in which that could happen?
May said that if her deal was voted down, there would be more uncertainty “or it could risk no Brexit at all”.
Corbyn asked if last week’s withdrawal text was the final one. May said the Brexit package was made up of two parts: the withdrawal agreement had been agreed in principle, but there was also the future relationship document. The whole lot would be discussed by the EU on Sunday.
Corbyn said the Brexit secretary was not going to Brussels. Was the post now just ceremonial? He also asked how much it would cost the UK to prolong the transition.
May said they were talking about the Irish backstop. She said she wanted to avoid a hard border by getting the future relationship in place. There might be a backstop, or there might be an extension of the implementation period. But there could also be alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border.
Corbyn said the UK would have to pay. The Canada deal took seven years, the Singapore deal eight years. Did May think she was fooling anyone when she said a final relationship would be decided by December 2020?
May said the problem Corbyn had with this deal was that he had not even read it. He was opposed to any deal, no matter how good it was. But he would accept any EU deal, however bad. And he would use the transition period to renegotiate the withdrawal agreement. He had said there might be a referendum, but he did not even know what the question was.
Corbyn said May’s government had got Britain into this mess. May knew full well that, with a European parliament not in place until the summer, there was less than a year for the negotiations for a future trade deal. May had said no PM would agree a customs border down the Irish Sea, but the backstop would create that.
May said Corbyn was wrong. The EU had given way on a Northern Ireland-only backstop. She said it was clear Corbyn did not know the agreement. Never mind a second referendum; Corbyn didn’t have a first clue.
Corbyn said there was an entire protocol referring just to Northern Ireland. May had not discussed this with the DUP. He said the deal failed May’s red lines and Labour’s six tests. And it failed to impress the new Northern Ireland minister, who said the deal was dead. Wasn’t it the case that parliament would reject the deal? If May couldn’t get it through, she should make way, he said.
May said the public had given her an instruction, and Corbyn wanted to play party politics. He was opposing a deal he hadn’t read, promising a deal he could not negotiate, and telling leave voters one thing and remain voters another. Whatever Corbyn said, she would act in the national interest.
Snap verdict
That was May’s best PMQs exchange with Corbyn for quite some time. In recent weeks he has frequently had her on the back foot on this topic, but this time she got the better of the Labour leader relatively easily.
Corbyn had good points to make about the cost of extending the transition, and the time allowed for the trade negotiation only being about a year, but he tripped up with his fifth question when he muddled up a customs border down the Irish Sea (which is not in the withdrawal agreement) with a regulatory border (which is). It was a fairly basic mistake, obvious to anyone with only GCSE-level Brexitology, and all the more surprising because this issue has dominated Brexit news coverage in recent weeks. May couldn’t believe her luck.
The complaint that Corbyn hadn’t read the 560-page text in full was a cheap and shallow one (no sensible person in his position would), but his customs error meant that when May made this point repeatedly, it had some force. Her summary of the charge against Labour’s stance on Brexit in response to the final answer was particularly crisp (which is not to say the case against her Brexit stance is much more damning), but she also got through the session because she actually made news. In her response to Corbyn’s first question, she specifically rejected what Amber Rudd had said on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme earlier, and revived her claim that voting against her deal could lead to the UK staying in the EU.
Memorable lines
Jeremy Corbyn:
The new Brexit secretary is another non-travelling Brexit secretary and is apparently not going with her. I wonder if the post is now an entirely ceremonial one.
Theresa May:
All he wants to do is to play politics. He is opposing a deal he hasn’t read, he is promising a deal he can’t negotiate, he is telling leave voters one thing and remain voters another. Whatever [he] might do, I will act in the national interest.
