Did Remain Cause a Hard Brexit?

Some points on Nick Tyrone's piece exonerating remainers and Remainism for the hard Brexit we ended up with.

First, where I agree. As a movement of parliamentarians and in the wider country, Remain did not cause the Brexit shit show we ended up with. He's right. Theresa May was responsible when she set out the terms of what Brexit meant in the most narrow, sovereigntist terms possible and as argued at the time and since her concern was about keeping the Tory party together. This trumped everything else. Second, May and Boris Johnson, who converted to Brexit because it was but a trifle, chicken feed you might say, for the country to pay if it meant having him for Prime Minister. And third, the campaign for a second referendum was wrong. For Tyrone, it's because if it was successful and remain won there would be endless bad blood, and if leave was reaffirmed politics would be in an even darker, more reactionary place than now. Though, as was obvious at the time, for many of the elite figures involved, particularly from Labour, getting another referendum was a secondary objective.

Disagreements. On the indicative votes, and the brief window of negotiations that took place between May and Jeremy Corbyn after her Brexit deal was smashed by massive government defeats. Taking the votes first, readers might remember that four options were put before the Commons. There was the revocation of Article 50 in the event of a no deal Brexit, pushed by the SNP. Peter Kyle put down a second referendum option, Ken Clarke a Brexit that would have kept Britain inside the Customs Union, and the softest of Brexits pushed by Nick Boles that kept the meat of Clarke's preference and added the gravy of free movement and some form of single market access. Labour whipped for all save the SNP's motion, and for their part the SNP supported Boles's Brexit. Boles fell 261-282, Kyle 280-292, and Clarke 273-276. Tyrone argues if a few more remain-minded MPs had given an inch and supported Clarke, it wouldn't have mattered because an indicative vote is, unsurprisingly, indicative. Not much would have materially changed.

Politics is a matter of probabilities, and there's a deal of reading back the actual outcome into what might have happened. Remember, the indicative process begun because the Commons was log-jammed. At this stage Article 50 was still ticking away after its first extension and following May's third defeat. No deal was not off the table, and it appeared paralysis could lead to the worst possible outcome. Given the fevered state of politics, the consequence of a positive vote in favour of the Clarke option would have transformed the situation. As we later saw in the Autumn, and given John Bercow's thinly concealed support for the opposition, there is good reason to believe parliament could have wrestled away control of the legislative timetable from May's imploding government. A proper motion for Clarke could have gone down and might well have been won and all bets would have been off for what happened next. But whatever possibilities that moment may have had were shut off because the Liberal Democrats, Change UK and the SNP did not support it. Given Scotland voted remain, there were very good reasons for the SNP to do as they did. Not so the ultra remain parties. That doesn't make them chiefly responsible for what did happen, but their choices had consequences.

On the negotiations, Tyrone argues Corbyn has more responsibility for the hard Brexit because he could simply have whipped for May's deal, which was a de facto customs arrangement anyway. He's right that the Tories would have self-destructed if May had to rely on Corbyn's support, but this supposes Labour were happy campers at this stage. When May invited all comers into negotiations with the government, so desperate was she to get her deal done that she offered absolutely no concessions to anybody. Labour wanted to make changes to her political declaration and, as a floor, affirm remaining in the customs union - as per Clarke's position. May wasn't interested. In this situation, Corbyn could have said fine, the party will support her deal despite not offering anything and caused a serious split in its own ranks. Not just with remain-ultra MPs on its backbenches, but very probably on its front bench and among the membership itself. Remember, Labour was forced to adopt the second referendum position eventually because supporting Leave on Tory terms, whether May's or Johnson's, would have destroyed the party. Think the 2019 result was bad? It could have been so much worse.

When it comes down to it, Brexit is a complete dog's dinner. It's a criminal waste of time when other social problems are going begging and most of the major nations are sitting on their hands as climate change disaster bears down on us. But it could have been handled differently, and the kind of exit we got was not inevitable. Remain as a movement are not responsible, though actions by some of its adherents limited the scope for a different ending. Nor for that matter was Jeremy Corbyn who worked to protect the position of our people. It's so much easier to think about the Brexit wars as personality clashes and blame games, but as with all things political it was a struggle between interests. And that's how the politics and fall out of the referendum must be approached.

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