The Roman toga may no longer be the form of dress but barely concealed daggers are simply awaiting the right moment. Politically, Theresa May is living on borrowed time, a “dead woman walking”, for whom the only question, according to former Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, is “how long she will spend on death row”. The settling of old scores among former party colleagues are always the most treacherous and the British Conservative party is well practised in dispatching leaders who fall out of favour.
Let us as of now assume the political death of a fleeting UK prime minister further damaged by the tragedy of Grenfell Tower, a cruel testament to the consequences of politics where social and safety concerns would seem to have played second fiddle to the economic imperatives of austerity. However, it has to be wondered if Theresa May will not take down two more victims with her. To paraphrase Monty Python, she has climbed up onto her own cross but does she not have two further mutilated victims at her sides: “hard Brexit” and Brexit, full stop? And is it not the Europeans from the continent and Ireland who might timorously be thinking about crooning that you must “always look on the bright side of life”?
Hard Brexit would seem to be off the table. In the wake of the general election result, it is virtually inevitable that the British negotiators will be forced to adopt a more consensual approach. Even within the government, voices are making themselves heard that this will be the case – that of Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, for example, leaving a lingering doubt of resignation if it is not so. The message has been received loud and clear by Theresa May, who, at her meeting in Paris with President Macron, said that she wanted to maintain a “deep and special partnership” with the EU.
We are far, then, from the initial “no agreement rather than a bad agreement” and much closer to a “Norwegian scenario” which would see the United Kingdom retain access to the single market. That would mean that some in London would be forced to take back their pompous, overweening promises of kicking those troublesome Europeans, all their directives and the Court of Justice, that insufferable destroyer of sovereignty, out of the United Kingdom once and for all.
That is what will take Theresa May to her demise. As former minister Michael Heseltine recently observed: “Brexit is a cancer eating at the heart of the Conservative party”. The vote on 8 June was a bitter blow for the supporters a radical Brexit who had held sway within the Tory party over the last few months and years (see EUROPE 11805). It hasn’t, however, signed their political death warrant.
Quite the opposite. They will no doubt find in the probable softening of the British posture in the face of the European “front” the pretext for getting rid of a leader defeated at the polls so that they can resume even more fervently their fight against membership of the EU.
We have to accept and agree with Thomas Hüetlin that “the promise of Brexit was steeped in ideology from the very beginning, a fairy tale based on dark chauvinism” (Der Spiegel, 15 June). In short, in a country which they dominate, the English have had to wait for Europe for their suppressed nationalism to find its expression. Over the decades and in particular these last few years, the chipping away by the extremists of Nigel Farage’s UKIP and the tabloids which aligned themselves with the West’s most reactionary fringes has won over a majority of Conservative MPs – while the social impact of the crisis in Europe led many among their Labour opponents to see the EU only as a threat from which people had to be protected. Thus, over time, Brexit became an inviolable dogma, ultimately punctuated by the mantra: the people have spoken. Once and for all. Indeed, are not those who question it, whether judges or ordinary citizens, presented by some as “enemies of the people”?
And yet, has the British people really decided? Has it said what kind of Brexit it wanted? It most certainly has not. The economist Anatole Kaletsky sees in this abusive rhetoric attacks on democracy far more serious than those perpetrated in the homeland of Donald Trump: “In the US, such proto-fascist language is heard on the extremist fringes; in Britain, even mainstream media and parliamentary debates routinely refer to opponents of Brexit as anti-democratic schemers and unpatriotic saboteurs” (Project Syndicate, 31 May). Theresa May accepted this divide until the result of the general election. Why? Could it be that the law of the one who shouts loudest now always prevails in the land of Magna Carta? Yes, but it’s more than that.
Did the UK prime minister not call a snap election because she knew that Her Majesty’s government had pledged in its White Paper on Brexit to put the agreement on the hard Brexit which she wanted to a vote in the Commons and in the House of Lords (see EUROPE 11717)? It was little import that it was not stated whether or not these votes would be binding, she intended to have a majority of more than 17 to guard against any slip-ups.
Her plan failed and there she is now worse off than she was before: very quickly she’ll find herself caught in the crossfire between her extreme Brexiteers and all those who, in the lobbies of the House of Commons, are not ready to accept Brexit at any price – and intend to make that plain to her.
Worse: in reality, she is facing an even greater danger because, this time, it’s the very principle of Brexit that could be held up to question.
Theresa May’s electoral setback provides a fillip to all who would like to remain in the EU or who, fundamentally, fail to see how a consultative referendum could lead the executive to take the popular vote as gospel and decide to implement its own interpretation, hard Brexit rather than any other less problematic solution. Anatole Kaletsky chokes with outrage: “While many mature democracies would require some kind of super-majority to confirm an enormous constitutional change like Brexit, the UK has never seen the need for such checks and balances”. No clearer confirmation could be given of the feelings of author Ian McEwan when he speaks of “a gang comprising many angry old men, irritable even in victory” who are “shaping the future of the country against the inclinations of its youth”, taking huge liberties with even the most basic democratic standards.
It is to that erosion of democracy that the result of the 8 June election could bring a halt. It seems obvious that parliamentarians will take account of the warning handed out by citizens and will ensure that, through their efforts, Westminster will be called on to approve the outcome of the negotiations with Michel Barnier and his team. Thus, the trap closes inexorably on Mrs May who, under pressure from the many rabid Brexiteers in her party and aware that she will be forced to seek the blessing of Parliament, might, in an attempt to reverse fortunes as far as she can, be tempted by the thought of very quickly calling a fresh general election.
Will her fellow Conservatives accord her enough time, however? No matter! What counts from a European point of view is that, thanks to Theresa May, the cards are being completely reshuffled in the United Kingdom and that time, probably, is no longer on the side of the Brexit-seeking ideologues. This time it’s the citizens who are watching what’s happening and the elected representatives who know that they need to pay them heed or face even more blistering rejections in future.
For Europeans, it is, then, important to wait while also entering into the negotiations with the British emissaries forcefully and in a spirit of fairness on the basis of joint positions which are at least clear and unambiguous (see EUROPE 11806).
As President Macron quite rightly said when he met Mrs May, the United Kingdom can always reverse its decision to leave the EU. European leaders would be irresponsible if they did not grasp the hand that the British may extend to them in the coming months, thereby avoiding for everyone the costs and the bruises of even a successful divorce.
But let the members of the European Council be fully aware that it would be even more irresponsible if they were once again to agree to the demands of the British government as they did so shamefully in the arrangement concluded with David Cameron on 19 February of last year when they approved what was no more than a major distortion of the European project (see EUROPE 11495). This arrangement is now null and void following the decision to proceed with Brexit. It must not under any circumstances be allowed to re-appear should the prodigal return.
Better, the negotiations which opened on 19 June (see EUROPE 11811) should now completely change: they should focus on how to ensure that the United Kingdom is no longer a foreign body that has come into the Union in order to destroy it. The negotiations should ensure that British citizens become European citizens like the others, all united beyond their governments.
Michel Theys