We still don’t know what Brexit May mean
Posted By: July 27, 2016
Brian Feeney. Irish News (Belfast). Wednesday,July 27, 2016
Naturally, all the emphasis these days is on the British Labour party as it publicly disembowels itself. You wouldn’t know it and the fanatically anti-Labour British press won’t tell you, but the Conservative party has been shaken to its core by the dramatic events of the past month.
This is a party which has lost its leader, engaged in serial shocking political assassinations before and during the contest for a new leader, has seen the discredited Boris Johnson disappear from public life for a fortnight only to return to one of the highest offices in England while Cameron and his ‘Notting Hill boys’ have been cast into exterior darkness.
You have to hand it to the Conservatives. You know the old adage: like a swan, calm and serene on the surface but paddling like crazy just below the surface. Despite appearances, the Conservatives haven’t recovered from the bitter acrimonious referendum campaign. Remember the fierce attacks launched on Boris Johnson by the grandees Soames and Heseltine? That’s nothing to what Tories really thought and said in private. The party is rent by division and disunity.
You’d never guess that a sizeable majority of Conservative MPs supported Remain. They are busily plotting how to use their majority to make life difficult for those on the far right who act as if they are the majority. Of course, the Loony Leavers know this threat perfectly well and are watching Remainer in chief Theresa May like hawks to ensure she doesn’t pull a fast one. They suspect that Leave will not really be Leave.
The atmosphere is febrile. Already there are rumours that there could be a seven-year ‘holiday’ on migration in return for staying in the single market. Anti-Europeans like John Redwood have instantly been out of the traps protesting that people did not vote for that.
The first shots will be fired in October when parliament starts debating the terms and conditions for negotiation. It’s inconceivable that there won’t be a vote on those terms before Article 50 is triggered. Already pro-European Tories, Labour, SNP and Lib Dem MPs have been meeting to plan how to challenge the detail of proposals. Theresa May has a majority of 12-16 in normal circumstances. Watch out for the revenge of the rejected who can easily overturn that majority – again and again. Even the small group of sleeki t[sly or cunning] Unionist opportunists won’t be able to help May.
There’s talk of doing a ‘reverse Maastricht’. That is for a cross-party group of pro-European MPs to repeat the tactics of the anti-European right in the early 1990s. They reduced John Major’s majority to one in debates on the Maastricht Treaty and the Single European Act in 1992 and on one occasion even produced a controversial dead heat in the Commons. Those machinations, exacerbated by the disgraceful voting behaviour of the Unionists, hamstrung Major and destroyed the first IRA ceasefire.
It will be a long and painful process for May to push through negotiation terms with line after line being contested. As for the House of Lords, it’s estimated the members favour Remain by a factor of six to one and they’re not afraid to defeat the government.
All of which explains why here on Monday Theresa May just waffled. She has no idea yet what negotiating position to adopt so she couldn’t say what kind of border arrangements there might be. She couldn’t dare say anything definite which might have implied a ‘reverse Greenland’ set up or a Norwegian type deal, either of which would have pre-empted the inevitable House of Commons debate on terms and alarmed one or other wing of her divided party.
This political turmoil in the Conservative party is one reason why the prospective legal action by a group from the north is particularly interesting. It’s unlikely the High Court will interfere in any meaningful way and certainly not coercively in such fraught political matters but compelling Theresa May to respond before she’s declared her hand in Westminster could bring the divide in the Conservative party out into the open.
Here, it’s a shame the huge political miscalculation of Arlene Foster, the sole Leaver among devolved leaders, prevents the executive authentically articulating people’s best interests.
Naturally, all the emphasis these days is on the British Labour party as it publicly disembowels itself. You wouldn’t know it and the fanatically anti-Labour British press won’t tell you, but the Conservative party has been shaken to its core by the dramatic events of the past month.
This is a party which has lost its leader, engaged in serial shocking political assassinations before and during the contest for a new leader, has seen the discredited Boris Johnson disappear from public life for a fortnight only to return to one of the highest offices in England while Cameron and his ‘Notting Hill boys’ have been cast into exterior darkness.
You have to hand it to the Conservatives. You know the old adage: like a swan, calm and serene on the surface but paddling like crazy just below the surface. Despite appearances, the Conservatives haven’t recovered from the bitter acrimonious referendum campaign. Remember the fierce attacks launched on Boris Johnson by the grandees Soames and Heseltine? That’s nothing to what Tories really thought and said in private. The party is rent by division and disunity.
You’d never guess that a sizeable majority of Conservative MPs supported Remain. They are busily plotting how to use their majority to make life difficult for those on the far right who act as if they are the majority. Of course, the Loony Leavers know this threat perfectly well and are watching Remainer in chief Theresa May like hawks to ensure she doesn’t pull a fast one. They suspect that Leave will not really be Leave.
The atmosphere is febrile. Already there are rumours that there could be a seven-year ‘holiday’ on migration in return for staying in the single market. Anti-Europeans like John Redwood have instantly been out of the traps protesting that people did not vote for that.
The first shots will be fired in October when parliament starts debating the terms and conditions for negotiation. It’s inconceivable that there won’t be a vote on those terms before Article 50 is triggered. Already pro-European Tories, Labour, SNP and Lib Dem MPs have been meeting to plan how to challenge the detail of proposals. Theresa May has a majority of 12-16 in normal circumstances. Watch out for the revenge of the rejected who can easily overturn that majority – again and again. Even the small group of sleeki t[sly or cunning] Unionist opportunists won’t be able to help May.
There’s talk of doing a ‘reverse Maastricht’. That is for a cross-party group of pro-European MPs to repeat the tactics of the anti-European right in the early 1990s. They reduced John Major’s majority to one in debates on the Maastricht Treaty and the Single European Act in 1992 and on one occasion even produced a controversial dead heat in the Commons. Those machinations, exacerbated by the disgraceful voting behaviour of the Unionists, hamstrung Major and destroyed the first IRA ceasefire.
It will be a long and painful process for May to push through negotiation terms with line after line being contested. As for the House of Lords, it’s estimated the members favour Remain by a factor of six to one and they’re not afraid to defeat the government.
All of which explains why here on Monday Theresa May just waffled. She has no idea yet what negotiating position to adopt so she couldn’t say what kind of border arrangements there might be. She couldn’t dare say anything definite which might have implied a ‘reverse Greenland’ set up or a Norwegian type deal, either of which would have pre-empted the inevitable House of Commons debate on terms and alarmed one or other wing of her divided party.
This political turmoil in the Conservative party is one reason why the prospective legal action by a group from the north is particularly interesting. It’s unlikely the High Court will interfere in any meaningful way and certainly not coercively in such fraught political matters but compelling Theresa May to respond before she’s declared her hand in Westminster could bring the divide in the Conservative party out into the open.
Here, it’s a shame the huge political miscalculation of Arlene Foster, the sole Leaver among devolved leaders, prevents the executive authentically articulating people’s best interests.
jenny downing on
