On Thursday, a reportedly tearful Theresa May promised to step down as prime minister, whatever the outcome of the next Brexit vote – which she is very unlikely to win. But many are past caring.
A complicated series of events was set in motion this week, after the British prime minister announced a fourth Brexit vote will take place the week of 3 June (EUROPE 12255/22). The vote will be on the (as yet unpublished) Withdrawal Agreement Bill, the draft law needed to bring the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement (the international treaty painstakingly negotiated over 18 months) into UK law. This is not to be confused with the EU (Withdrawal) Act, which was approved last year, and was a kind of logistical precursor to the process (it repeals the UK’s 1972 EU accession act, among other things) (EUROPE 11860/7).
Eurasia group analyst Mujtaba Rahman says “defeat remains overwhelmingly likely” for the deal, given the collapse of talks with the Labour party and the continued opposition of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and many backbench Conservative MPs. The best case scenario is that Labour abstains on the vote, though Rahman says speculation on this is “groundless”.
If May does lose the vote, she could be ousted as early as 15 June, when grassroots Conservatives hold a confidence vote. A Tory leadership race takes around six weeks, meaning a new leader could be in place by the end of July. She could last longer, but most MPs want her gone before Parliament’s summer recess (in mid-late July).
Most EU officials are past caring. European Commission vice-president Frans Timmermans even joked this week that the political machinations in London look like a “Game of Thrones on steroids”. Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform writes that many in Brussels are “fed up” with the political mess in London and that the UK has “eroded much of the goodwill” EU politicians initially had. There was also a time when the EU would have done anything to keep May in power – in order to keep former foreign secretary Boris Johnson out of office – but even those cares have evaporated.
But the EU is worried about Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party winning big in the 23 May election. “They fear that a Boris Johnson-led government or a European Parliament dominated by the antics of Nigel Farage and his continental friends could enable hard-Brexiteers to disrupt EU business from the inside,” Charles Grant writes.
Several new polls published this week put Farage’s party ahead of both Labour and the Conservatives, with the Liberal Democrats also winning out. One poll (by Opinium) put the Brexit Party in first place at 34%, with the Conservatives in last place, after the Lib Dems, Labour and the Greens. May’s abiding hope is that an election loss will jolt people into voting in favour of her deal, out of fear of enabling a Farage-led Brexit.
The sands are finally shifting in London, but it’s still extremely unclear when, how and if Brexit will happen. (Sarah Collins)