Brexit: Why It’s All Down to Corbyn Now
Credit to Author: Gavin Haynes| Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2019 14:10:23 +0000
Just who is running the British Army these days? Does he look good in shades?
Because the good news is that Parliament has confidence in Theresa May’s government. The bad news is no one else does.
During the pre-vote debate, one MP joked that the PM should “prorogue Parliament” – suspend the legislature – until after 29 March.
Ha. But seriously: a brief spell of rule by the Colonels seems like it might be the least-worst option from here on in. The old gag about democracy? That: “it’s the worst form of government… apart from all the others.”? I say: “Not anymore.”
I’m sure we could depose General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith after a few years anyway. We’d just have one of those very on-trend, flower-in-the-rifle-barrel Carnation Revolutions. Non-violent. Very British. Keep Calm & Overthrow The Junta.
The problem is that no one on the inside of the political class is yet prepared to talk about the scale of our deadlock, the extent to which the ship is rudderless and drifting.
After her stunning victory last night in the Vote of No Confidence (secured with 10 DUP votes who know very well their price), Mrs May immediately came out with a kind of Government of National Unity approach. She wanted, she said, to hold talks with rival party leaders, to find a way through.
In her phrase: “We know what Parliament won’t accept, now we need to find out what it will”. She’d already held talks with the Lib Dems. She’d be meeting the Greens at 9AM the next morning.
All of which gives her 11 votes for “Smash Brexit”. But what about Labour?
Yes, what about Labour? There’s more than one hopelessly-split eccentrically-optimistic party in the Palace of Westminster, come to think of it, though, no one has thought of it much in all the May-centric clustering of fuck.
That era ends today. Corbyn’s strategy – issued to him by Labour members at the party conference back in September – was to “push for a General Election”, and as of last night, that strategy has definitively failed. He can no longer hide the internal splits, the 250 separate Brexit policies his MPs hold, behind his Tories Are Rubbish smokescreen.
Last night, we received the first vague sketch of what could replace it. Labour’s first response to the idea of cross-party talks was a precondition: that they would not meet until May ruled “No Deal” out-of-bounds.
It buys him time, it makes him seem like “not the wrecking party”. But it doesn’t take the focus away from Labour. What Corbyn does next could decide the game. He claims he wants to govern. So let’s see him try. May has kicked the ball firmly into his court. The media focus will be relentless, with the Hard Remain press and the right wing press forming an unholy pincer around him.
The good news for the Great Leaders is that they can’t both put their parties out of office for a generation. The bad news is that the only way ahead is to figure out who can.
Numerically, the SNP plus Greens plus Lib Dems still aren’t enough to outweigh the DUP plus 80-odd Tory Eurosceptics. So May teaming up with them would be meaningless. Even if they wanted the same thing. Which they don’t.
That means it’s down to Corbyn. If he fears No Deal so much, by his own logic that means he now has to choose between propping up May and bringing down the country. He has 51 working days to decide.
To remove No Deal from his agenda is already a vast and risky slap in the face to his Northern and Welsh working class vote. But Corbyn also has 88 MPs who yesterday signed a pledge to back a “People’s” Vote. Both will never forgive him, and he’s a guy who instinctively craves forgiveness.
The situation is little better for Corbyn on May’s side. In order to dip his hands in the blood, she also has to effectively offer Corbyn a kind of co-premiership. She has to do the thing she’s scrupulously avoided in 2017’s TV debates – make Jez look presidential. And, if the Parliamentary maths are to make sense, she also has to do that while selling the truest blue part of her own party – the Eurosceptic bit that thrives at constituency level – down the river.
JC should know his Lenin: “There are decades when nothing happens, and weeks when decades happen”. That’s where we are. In reality, he doesn’t even have anything like 51 days. On Monday, May is supposed to be back in the Commons, announcing her “Plan B”.
But at the same time, MPs are plotting to table a new law, which would short-circuit the executive altogether. It would, apparently: “Give Parliament, through the Commons Liaison Committee, the power to impose an alternative Brexit policy on the Government.” If the Commons still can’t agree on a policy, the bill would then force the Government to extend Article 50.
The image of the two party chiefs sat on the sidelines while their backbenchers stitch up the leadership – and maybe the voters – would be a depth of humiliation that had previously seemed beyond political engineering.
Then again, maybe they’re better off out of it. The image of the two most wooden interpersonal performers it is possible to imagine, sat by the Adam fireplace in Number 10’s Terracotta drawing room, sipping tea and making pre-negotiation small talk, would snap every spine in the country through sheer cringe. What good would a People’s Vote be then?
This article originally appeared on VICE UK.