“I am big. It’s the pictures that got small,” Norma Desmond insists in Sunset Boulevard. The self-confidence of Brexiters, so flush with victory less than two years ago, looks similarly out of date and delusional. Brexit seems increasingly unimpressive even to its own supporters. David Davis’s message of reassurance to European business leaders gathered in Vienna – that Brexit will not change the kind of country Britain is – is the antithesis of everything the leave campaign promised. Amid the inconsistencies, outright contradictions and untruths, the one unifying strand was the pledge of a transformative moment for the UK (never mind the prevarication over what precise form the transformation might take).
In contrast, the Brexit secretary’s speech was reminiscent of the chancellor Philip Hammond’s remark in Davos that the government would seek only modest changes in its relationship with the EU – comments disowned by the prime minister as pro-leave MPs reacted with fury. Its tone was echoed in a separate speech on Tuesday by the environment secretary, Michael Gove, to the National Farmers’ Union, promising the maintenance of high standards and acknowledging the reliance on migrant workers in agriculture.
The disagreements within Conservative ranks look less and less like a grand ideological division between those for or against Brexit, and more and more like the split between those free to pontificate without having to face up to unpleasant realities (Jacob Rees-Mogg et al), and those forced into realism by actually dealing with the consequences of this folly. The former have become so reckless that, faced with a choice between harmony on the island of Ireland and a hard Brexit, they attack the Good Friday agreement as unsustainable (disingenuously insisting that their pronouncements have nothing to do with leaving the EU at all). The latter, who have to read the details and handle tough negotiations, are becoming ever less ambitious, looking for something – anything – that will do before time runs out in March next year. Jeremy Corbyn’s commitment to a customs union with the EU after Brexit reflects and furthers this sharpening of realities.
These are the tensions that will play out when the cabinet gathers at Chequers on Thursday. Unable to lead her party to a solution, Theresa May apparently hopes that they will wrestle out a deal between themselves, producing an outcome that will almost certainly satisfy no one, but will allow them all to stagger across the Brexit line. Once they have done that, of course, the deed is done and Brexiters will be able to reshape their plans.
Mr Davis’s speech sought to reassure his counterparts by emphasising that UK regulations would stay aligned with EU rules, stressing the role that Britain had played in the latter’s creation. He even claimed that Britain would embark upon a race to the top when it came to standards. The image of a bonfire of regulations warmed the cockles of leave campaigners’ hearts. No one put the promise of more red tape on the side of a big red bus. Never mind the nonexistent £350m a week for the NHS. The things that Brexiters really believed in are thin on the ground too.
The acknowledgment that you can’t beat China by being cheaper is sensible. So is the recognition that EU regulations are imperfect; they should be seen as a floor, not a ceiling. But few developed nations aim for the bottom; it’s just that they can end up there when other options are cut off – as Britain’s are by Brexit. Raising your game is easier when you’re part of a big club that can set the agenda, instead of a lone competitor. The Conservatives’ record hardly suggests they are poised to become the champions of workers and environmental protections. Rules aligned in 2019 may be very different in 2021, or 2025.
Brexiters portrayed it as the assertion of a bolder country upon the global stage. That was always a stretch. It is, increasingly, a much diminished vision of a diminished nation: as alarming to remainers as ever and unsatisfactory to all. The closeup is coming into view, and it is not flattering.
