LONDON — With less than three months remaining until the March 29 deadline for the United Kingdom to divorce itself from the European Union, crunch time is approaching for the country’s leaders.
Britain’s Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May plans to put the Brexit deal she negotiated with the EU to a vote in the House of Commons on Jan. 15. Indications are it will go down in flames.
“At the moment, it does not look like it will get through Parliament,” says Mark Wickham-Jones, a political scientist at the University of Bristol.
Members of Parliament (MPs), a person elected to the House of Commons, will have the final say on what a Brexit agreement will look like. However, there is no majority in Parliament for crashing out of Europe without a deal, even a month after May postponed a previously scheduled final vote when it became apparent her proposal was facing a huge defeat.
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May’s deal — a framework for Britain’s future relations with Europe — is despised by all sides. Hardcore Brexit supporters want a faster, sharper break from the EU, while MPs who prefer a “soft Brexit” — a phrase used describe keeping the U.K. closely aligned with the EU — say sharp separation is a recipe for economic hardship with few benefits.
After taking nearly two years to negotiate the pact with Brussels, a rejection by Parliament will be deeply humiliating for May. A rejection also would give Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the main opposition Labour Party, more ammunition to continue attacks on May for failing to deliver a smooth exit from the EU, which U.K. voters narrowly demanded in a June 2016 referendum.
But Corbyn could quickly find himself in a highly uncomfortable situation. If May’s plan is defeated, pressure on Corbyn will ratchet up from his party to push for a second referendum and kick the issue back to voters again — something he’s been loath to do.
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Adding to that pressure is a YouGov poll of Labour Party members and voters. Funded by an academic research council and released on Jan. 2, the poll shows 72 percent of Labour Party members and 57 percent of Labour voters want Corbyn to support a new referendum. Several new polls indicate that this time Britons would vote to remain in the EU in a new referendum.
“There’s growing pressure on Corbyn to relent on this,” says Tim Bale, a politics professor at Queen Mary, University of London, who was involved in the poll. “But how do they turn overwhelming support (for a second referendum) into action on Corbyn’s part? He’d do anything to avoid it.”
The impasse over May’s Brexit deal has its roots in the outcome of the original referendum, in which British voters supported separating from the EU 52 to 48 percent. May surmised Brexit won because British voters wanted to curb immigration from Europe. So she’s ensured her deal would also pull the U.K. out of the EU’s single market and customs union. Remaining in those trade blocs would require Britain to continue to accept the free movement of people.
But erecting trade and customs barriers between Britain and EU would also resurrect a hard border between the U.K.’s Northern Ireland province and the Republic of Ireland — a border that was demolished by the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement.
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So Brussels and Britain agreed to an “Irish backstop,” basically an understanding that if no permanent trade deal can be worked out by the end of a transition period in December 2020, Northern Ireland would continue to adhere to some single-market rules and the U.K. would remain in the customs union until a solution was found.
The backstop has incensed Brexit supporters because it could keep the U.K. in the customs union indefinitely, thus stopping Britain from striking new trade deals within and outside of Europe. Since postponing the vote last month, May has been trying to win assurances from EU leaders to guarantee that the backstop would only be temporary. EU leaders have vowed that they won’t renegotiate the deal.
Corbyn, an unapologetic socialist from the party’s far-left wing, has historically hated the EU, which he views as a neo-liberal, capitalist construct. “He’s totally hostile to the EU,” Wickham-Jones says. Accordingly, he’s made little effort to disguise his pro-Brexit leanings. He ultimately wants to lead a Labour government that would re-nationalize some industries and provide state aid to others. Corbyn has argued that EU regulations would stop him from doing that — a claim that EU law experts say is groundless.
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Corbyn’s goal is to use a possible May failure to force a general election, which he thinks Labour would win. Once in power, he has said he’s confident he could negotiate a new Brexit framework with Europe that would keep Britain in the single market and customs union, but also place curbs on free movement of people. EU leaders, however, have consistently said no such deal is possible.
“It’s unrealistic,” Bale says. “He’s trying to square a circle that can’t be squared.” It’s highly unlikely that enough support exists in Parliament to force a new election, Bale says. Even if there were, there’s no guarantee Labour would win an election. Recent polls show the two parties in a dead heat.
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If May’s plan fails and Parliament doesn’t opt to approve a second referendum, Britain could crash out of the EU with no deal, which analysts say will unleash economic turmoil. There are fears that it could cause widespread shortages of medicines and food, spark congestion and chaos at ports, degrade national security and ground airlines.
In November, the Bank of England forecast that a no-deal Brexit would cut economic growth by 9.3 percent over a 15-year period (while May’s plan would crimp growth by 3.9 percent). On Monday, consultants EY reported that assets worth $1 trillion are being moved out of Britain to EU financial centers because of fears of a no-deal divorce, and that the flow of cash out of the U.K. will only increase as March 29 nears.
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Britain could exit the EU without a deal by default if Parliament fails to coalesce around a more palatable option.
Bale says the chances of a no-deal Brexit are no more than 10 percent, though the fear of one could ultimately see May’s plan win enough support to pass — even if it takes two or three votes for it to happen. On Wednesday, however, Parliament voted to remove any chances for more than one vote on May’s plan. By 11 votes, MPs approved a measure to force May’s government to come up fresh options within three days if her deal is rejected next week. One of those options could be a second referendum.
As for support for another referendum, there may be enough MPs — including some Tories — willing to support that option, but passage would require the support of nearly all Labour MPs. But they won’t unless they get a green light from Corbyn, Bale says. For now Corbyn seems unwilling to cave on the issue.
Corbyn still retains substantial support from the party, Bale says. “He’s gambling that their love for him is greater than their hatred of Brexit.” But that’s a risky bet. Bale’s polling also shows that 6 in 10 Labour voters call Brexit the U.K.’s most important issue, “so he can’t assume he’s got them in the palm of his hand.”
If he fails them on Brexit, Bale says, “they’re not going to forgive him.”
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