Former British prime minister Harold Wilson once said, “A week is a long time in politics.” In today’s UK, it is safe to say that even a day is too long in British politics.
As the country nears the 29-March Brexit deadline, there were a host of political developments Wednesday. ThePrint tries to decode some of the political shifts that transpired.
Therese May uses wild card
In her final attempt to get a parliamentary approval for the government’s Brexit deal, UK Prime Minister Theresa brought out her wild card. Addressing the backbencher members of her Conservative Party, May said that she would resign once her Brexit deal is approved by the Parliament. May’s deal has been rejected twice.
May said that she would not be a part of the next stage of the Brexit process. Though her staff reportedly told various media outlets that for the second stage to arrive, UK needs to wrap up the first stage — getting a parliamentary approval for May’s Brexit deal.
The core aim of her resignation gamble is to force some of the Eurosceptic MPs to back her deal. It comes after there were rumours of a coup in the Conservative Party over the last weekend whereby some Conservative leaders were trying to replace her in order to win the support of Eurosceptic MPs. The coup failed to materialise though.
There were some quaint gains, though, from May’s resignation offer.
Leading Eurosceptic MPs such as former foreign secretary Boris Johnson agreed to back May’s deal. It is reported that at least 15 Eurosceptic MPs have agreed to back May after her resignation offer.
On the other hand, about 15 to 30 members of the independent European Research Group are still not ready to back May. In addition, May’s coalition partner the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has also announced to vote against May’s deal.
This drastically lowers the chances of May’s deal getting a parliamentary approval. The last time, 149 MPs had voted against her deal on 13 March.
None of Parliament’s ‘indicative votes’ manage to reach a majority
After an unprecedented parliamentary amendment Monday, the MPs had essentially gained the right to conduct voting on several Brexit options. The aim was to figure if a parliamentary majority existed for any other option other than May’s deal.
The MPs voted on 8 different options and failed to form a majority on any of them.
The Parliament came close to a majority for two options, but failed to cross the line. The idea of a new “customs union” with the European Union lost by 8 votes, while the proposal of a fresh referendum was voted down by 27 votes.
Effectively, the British House of Commons is as far from a consensus on the EU as it was on the eve of the Brexit referendum in 2016.
DUP’s veto power
For the past few months, the DUP has had a firm stand on the Brexit deal.
The withdrawal agreement between the UK and EU has a “backstop feature”. The aim of the backstop is to prevent a hard border between the two Irelands.
According to this backstop, in case the two fail to reach a trade deal after the transition period, there would be no hard border between UK’s Northern Ireland and the state of Ireland as the European Union follows the logic of a “single market”.
But this would effectively force Northern Ireland to follow EU’s trade policy and split the UK into two separate trade regimes.
The DUP is demanding that a binding provision is written into the Brexit withdrawal deal that would not only assure that no hard border is enforced, but also that Northern Ireland continues to follow the trade regime of the UK.
The EU has denied obliging this demand.
The DUP has 10 MPs and its support is essential for May to get her Brexit deal achieve a parliamentary approval.
The ‘minnow’
In a scathing column, the chief economic columnist of the Financial Times, Martin Wolf, tries to present the fundamental contradiction in UK’s approach. He writes that in the EU-UK bargaining dynamic, UK is a relatively weaker player, with very less real leverage.
EU is one of the world’s third largest economic entities. Put together with the US and China, the top three account for about 60 per cent of the global economic output.
Independently, the UK just accounts for 3 per cent. Additionally, the UK sends 47 per cent of its exports to the EU, while the latter just sends 15 per cent of its exports to the UK.
This severely weakens the negotiating hand of UK’s political leadership.
“It [UK] is large for a minnow, but still a minnow,” writes Wolf.
The harsh reality is that as long as the UK refuses to accept this basic power asymmetry, it would struggle to form a domestic consensus on Brexit.
Minnow!!! WOW!!! Coming from Wolf, this adjective must carry weight. Vainglory pumped up by hyper-nationalist politicians such as Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, the former, a perfect opportunist with no regard for national interest, and the latter, a shameless self-appointed ‘chowkidar’ of British interests. Top it up with a PM who is stubborn and blinded by her need to leave a legacy, howsoever flawed, and some two-faced business leaders like Dyson, and you have a nation that’s ready to let go of all influence and power, or whatever is left of it, in this globalised world.