Endgame, or very nearly

To an outside observer, British politics has an end-of-days vibe that is very similar to the final moments of IDSs time as Tory leader. The proposed legally binding deal, in all its glory, has been revealed and the proposed future framework has been hammered out.

And no-one likes it.

Yes, it is a ‘Canada’ style Brexit with glowing words about what might happen in the future – but it patently lacks any of the advantages of being a Canada type deal. Ok, we get to leave the single market & stop free movement (something important only to Theresa May) – but it also maintains a role for the ECJ, prevents us from signing trade deals and leaves the UK subject to the EUs veto etc etc.

It’s a cobbled-together mess, padded with aspirational phrases that is (clearly) not worth the paper it is written on - and everyone, in the public, the press & Parliament - knows it.

Moreover, the government is now avowedly breaking the solemn promises it made in earlier votes: the speaker has confirmed (twice) that the deal will be “amendable in the normal way” - as this was what the government promised to Grieve & his rebels several months back – but Mays government is now saying (and overruling the procedures committee) to say that it wont be.

Mays plan, such as it is, is that there will be a straight yes/no vote – and if this fails, the government will come back within 21 days and offer another straight yes/no vote. If this fails, the government will offer, within 7 days, a… straight yes/no vote. None of these will be amendable – MPs can eat their bowl of cold vomit now, or they can eat it tomorrow.

This profound inflexibility is seen by some as being oddly admirable – a triumph of resolution on the part of May – but I don’t think that at all. I think that May is a stupid, stubborn & inflexible politician who has survived through a combination of luck, lies & bullying. She is counting on the economy to tank between the 1^st & 3^rd votes in an attempt to blackmail enough wavering MPs into voting for it for fear of something else – truly an ‘eyes gouged out or be set on fire’ approach to politics.

The thing is, I don’t think that it can work.

Firstly, it is profoundly destructive to the Tory ‘brand’ – as an entity that claims to be ‘good managers of the economy’ both this approach & the deal are going to be really bad for the national finances. Whilst threats of a general election or Corbyn government might motivate some of her MPs, offsetting this is the abject catastrophe that accepting this deal will do to the economy, and thus to your election chances.

Secondly, even if this is passed by the Commons, it will be promptly rejected by the Lords, so we’re back to square 1 – and they most definitely will amend it. The government has no majority in the Lords.

Thirdly, May has lied so often and so much that I don’t think that there is any trust left for her in the Commons. Many of her most ardent supporters to-date (the ERG) are now awake to the fact that she is shafting everyone, not simply those backbenchers who supported ‘Remain’ in the 2016 referendum. Whilst the ERG might have supported her authoritarianism to bypass their less-zealous colleagues, they now realise they have put their own heads in the noose & removed their own checks on whatever deal she came up with.

Fourthly, May is a truly useless politician - who has thrown away her majority in a badly fought election. Assuming she manages to get her wavering backbenchers to support her, the DUP will not. Period. As her 2 modes are ‘dissembling’ (she literally promised 2 mutually contradictory things in the Commons the other day, separated by 5 minutes), and bullying (the plan to railroad the deal through the Commons) this is not going to work with the DUP. They need to be brought on side – if your plan involves ‘lying to & bullying the DUP’, you’re going to lose.

Moreover, given that she has taken a single facet of her old job and made it the overriding obsession of her premiership (Free.Movement.Will.End.) she has ignored wider perspective on the economy on peoples rights etc. She has not prepared the ground for any other outcomes, not reached out in any meaningful way to opposition parties and has ruled out any possibility of a 2^nd referendum or modification.

Her inability to handle the Commons makes her a worse PM than any post-war leader. Churchill after he had a stroke and could barely think had moments of lucidity & the respect of his colleagues. Eden, when high on drugs, could still control the house & recognise that a bad policy would kill him. Major won an election and managed to snooker his hardliners to such an extent that he got the Maastrict treaty through.

May lost an election, precipitated a major scandal (Windrush) that cost her a Home Secretary (on a policy she instituted) and looks out of her depth all the time. She lacks charisma & isn't a communicator - instead resorting to meaningless stock phrases. She cannot control the house, instead resorting to procedural trickery, rule changes and outright lies to stop revolts (its a good thing 'misleading the house' isn't realistically punishable) and she's out of road.

Also, she can’t hold a general election on this – her deal is hated so much that the local conservative associations would not vote (or campaign) for it. If this gets into the manifesto, expect the Tory party to collapse and a Labour government - assuming that the Tories vote for Christmas, given the FTPA.

To use an analogy, she is the driver of the Tory party bus and has spent much of the last 2 years telling the passengers that they’re all going to the beach – and with the knowing support of some passengers, she’s deliberately drawn curtains over the windows and taken all the maps away to prevent trouble. Now – to the collective horror of the passengers - she has deliberately parked the bus over an erupting volcano called Europe, put on the handbrake & hidden the keys.

She is now ignoring the pleads to move the bus off the vent – forward or backwards, anywhere, “just not here”.

At least one of the following 3 things is going to happen:

• The volcano is going to erupt and the Tory party is going to be destroyed as a political force for 20+ years (the ‘Corn Laws’ scenario),


• The volcano is going to be plugged long enough that the lava comes out somewhere else (the economy tanks & the protests erupt across the country),


• May is going to be replaced as driver & the bus is moved.

This last point bears further scrutiny as I think that May has been remarkably lucky that her backbenchers have not challenged her over her catastrophic mistakes in the last 2 years. Or, indeed, the effects of her time as Home Secretary (Windrush) when she turned the UK from a welcoming, liberal nation into one where migrants should go home. I suspect that she has – if anything - probably courted a challenge in the last 6-months: she would have almost certainly won such a challenge at any point until this last week which would have rendered her immune to another attempt for 12-months.

Sadly (for her) the Tory party has been able to keep its act together and ‘removing her’ is now a definite possibility, especially if the alternative is a catastrophic Brexit that will see the party swept out of power for 20 years.

So…what happens? I think May is drinking her last drop of her last drink in last chance saloon.

January/February election with a new Tory PM?