Bordering on the Ridiculous

Theresa May's approach to Brexit was always going to run into difficulty. From her first proper pronouncements on leaving the EU at 2016 Tory party conference, it was clear she wanted to go for a hard, or what Brexit headbangers like to call a "clean" Brexit. That meant practically severing all ties - the single market, the customs union, the jurisdiction of the European Court and, separately given her authoritarian bent, an exit from the Council of Europe - while retaining the same movement of commodities and capital, but definitely not people. And why was this her Brexit of choice, despite her nominal (and minimal) endorsement of remain earlier that year? Because she, just like her predecessor, is guided by Tory short-termism. The health of British business and the cabal of interests the Tories are supposedly the custodians of have time and again been set aside for perceived electoral expediency.

Hence we've hit the buffers. The fantasists around the Cabinet table and the Brexit bams are richly, deservedly getting their delusions served up on a platter. On outstanding liabilities and spending commitments, the UK are coughing up despite promises of grandstanding and belly aching that never materialised. After some unnecessary quibbling, May has accepted the EU's position on its citizens remaining in the UK with their status virtually unchanged. That one must have hurt the PM. And as you've probably seen from the news, Ireland and the Irish border remains the sticking point.

Befitting the useless decadence of the Tory party and its habit of winging everything, in what little Brexit planning the government indulged they failed to condescend a few thoughts in the direction of the UK's land border with the EU. As any Brentish management consultant will tell you, if you fail to plan then you plan to fail. In their arrogance, they thought Britain would be able to roll Ireland over. After all, while cross border trade between the Republic and the North isn't quite as heavy as you might think, as the otherwise ridiculous Owen Patterson notes, 14 per cent of Irish exports head to mainland Britain and it imports a quarter from the same. The Tories were hoping a bit of divide and rule might work as Ireland, after the UK, will be most affected by Brexit and have the most to lose if we crash out sans a trade deal. The fools.

And so their unserious approach to the negotiations saw them boxed very quickly into an impossible position. A return to a hard border is a no, yet May formally remains committed to life totally outside of the EU. For the Tory right, the freedom for Britain to strike its own bilateral trade deals is the panacea for all our woes. Which, in practice, means becoming the world centre for tax avoidance and offshore dodgy-dealing. However, May retains just enough sense to realise that the finely-balanced factional hell of her Parliamentary party will not allow for this, and so has to do something about the border. The debate then about a border in Ireland, an airborne border, an e-border, and a border staked out in the Irish Sea have nothing to do with the intractability of the Irish and the rest of the EU, and everything to do with the Tory Party and their Democratic Unionist mates.

The sensible Brexit position, insofar as one can be said to exist, is for Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK to remain in the customs union at the very least. The process would be less damaging and economic dislocation kept to a minimum. A new deal setting out a settlement between the UK and EU would still be required, but it would best serve the interests of British business. However, the Tory right don't want it. The compromise position then was keeping the North in the customs union, while the rest of the UK would go its own way. This obviously is not acceptable to the DUP as, rightly, it would bring the North more into the EU's orbit at the expense of the UK and raises the prospect of the overdue unification of the province with the rest of Ireland. Incredibly, it appears May had forgot her party are in hock to Arlene Foster to get the rest of their business through the House and prematurely announced a deal had been reached with the EU on that basis. Cue mayhem. And, as it happens, the DUP vetoed it. Cue no deal.

As the Tories now shut themselves away with the DUP to sort something out - another bung, perhaps? - it seems the parliamentary arithmetic is punting May towards remaining within the customs union after all. Desperate to get the trade talks underway, which will no doubt entail a hefty annual sub on top of the billions already pledged, it is looking increasingly likely we'll see some sort of fudge: some language paying lip service to the indivisibility of the UK and being an independent free trading nation, but in practice pledges "continued regulatory alignment". The headbangers won't like it, the gruesome twosome definitely wouldn't, but it might be acceptable to the other parties and therefore a majority of the House. Crucially, it helps keep the Tories and May's beleaguered leadership afloat. They know well that screwing up, and being seen to screw it up hands the Labour Party the keys to Number 10. And if abandoning the previous position is what it takes to stop that from happening, May will do it.

And so, again, just as short-term party considerations initially pointed May toward the rocks of a hard Brexit, the very same interests are steering her back to a more sensible position. This is not pragmatism, it's panic.