11 November 2018

Financial Times: A salutary Brexit warning from the serious Mr Johnson

The departure of transport minister Jo Johnson may deal a decisive blow to PM May's ability to pass her Brexit deal through Parliament. But Parliament’s final judgment must be on the merits of any deal rather than its capacity or otherwise to appease the warring factions in the Conservative party.

[...]Mr Johnson’s decision reflects deep-seated concern among pro-European Conservatives about the shape of the emerging agreement. He did not pull his punches. Mrs May, he said, was proposing an arrangement that, with its complicated arrangements for a customs union and regulatory convergence, would see Britain leave the EU but remain bound by most of its rules.

By deferring negotiations on a final settlement until after Britain had left, it carried the risk of leaving the country stranded in an economic and political no-mans land. Mrs May, Mr Johnson concluded, was presenting an impossible and false choice: between the “terrible mistake” of a deal that would leave the country economically weakened and politically powerless and a chaotic exit that would inflict untold damage on the nation.

This amounted to “a failure of British statecraft on a scale not seen since the Suez crisis”. Charging that the UK had been sold a false prospectus by the Leave campaign in 2016, Mr Johnson gave his backing to those calling for a new vote on the terms of any deal.

The force of Mr Johnson’s onslaught lay in its exposure of a fundamental weakness in the government’s approach from the very beginning of talks. Once the country had voted for Brexit, it was left to the government to take one big decision: where, in new arrangements with the EU, would Britain strike the balance between restoring powers to Westminster and maintaining privileged access to its most important market.

The Brexiters insisted there need be no such trade-off between control and access. Britain, the former foreign secretary said, could “have its cake and eat it”. Mrs May promised a “bespoke” arrangement providing frictionless trade without obligations. The cabinet Brexiter Michael Gove claimed Britain held “all the cards”. These delusions have been shattered by reality. But still Mrs May has dodged the decision.

The official strategy now is to rely on weariness, conditioning and frustration to create a sense of inevitability around whatever can be agreed, if it can be agreed, with the EU27. Mrs May hopes to carry a deal over the parliamentary line by relying on the “let’s just get it done” factor and by promoting fears among potential rebels on the Tory side that the chaos of rejection would usher in a hard-left Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn.

This, as Mr Johnson has said, is simply not good enough. Britain is approaching a decision that will have a profound impact on its future prosperity and security for a generation — the most important since joining the then European Community in 1973. Parliament’s final judgment must be on the merits of any deal rather than its capacity or otherwise to appease the warring factions in the Conservative party.

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