What is the likelihood that the issue will have been solved by the end of June? What does May intend to do during the next three months?
Make more fudge.
With red line icing.
The three month extension would be if the House of Commons somehow votes to approve the deal in the next few days. If the “meaningful vote” passes somehow, the deal still has to be enacted into UK law, and that could easily be a fractious process all on its own, so it wouldn’t be done before March 29.
It probably won’t be approved and the request will probably be for a longer period of time, not that anybody knows what the UK would do with that time either.
If Parliament votes to approve the deal early next week (which seems to me very unlikely) then, when May turns up at the European Council asking for a short extension, she’ll probably get it, to facilitate implementation of the agreed deal. (On a nitpick, she may not get it to 30 June, which is what she will ask for, but she is likely to get at least something shorter).
What if parliament again rejects the deal, and then May turns up looking for a short extension?
All the signs are that the heads of government will say “What for? The negotiations are finished and will not be reopened. What do you propose to do in this short extension that could possibly change anything for the better?” And May will need to have a convincing answer.
If the answer is “As I have failed to secure the support of my own party for a Brexit deal, I propose to approach other parties and try to build cross-party consensus in support of a new deal” (which is the answer several influential voices in the EU have suggested she needs to offer), that invites the response “a short extension is not going to be enough for that. Let’s talk 9 months, 12 months, 2 years, something like that”. There is no assurance that there would be unanimous agreement (which is what is required) between each of the EU member states and the UK on the need for a long extension or on the terms and conditions on which it might be given, but the idea is at least not obviously nonsensical. But a short extension to radically rethink the UK’s approach to Brexit, develop a cross-party consensus on a necessarily softer Brexit than is currently proposed, and then craft a new deal with the EU, nope. Not gonna happen.
The other possible answer May might offer is “I want a short extension so we can both prepare better for the crash-out Brexit which is now inevitable”. The EU might grant this, or they might not; it would entirely depend on whether they thought it was to the advantage of the EU. They couldn’t give a stuff as to whether it’s of any benefit at all to May or to the UK. If they feel they are alreasdy as well-prepared as they can be for a UK crash-out, they may see no merit in prolonging the agony; they have other things to do that require their attention.
I disagree. Why would someone who believed it was best to Remain be a good leader to implement Leave? Why would she put herself forward to implement a policy she disagreed with?
I think the fact that the PM is at heart a Remainer is the source of the “red lines” / conditions that have caused so much of the difficulty in the negotiations with the EU.
Better to have a true Leave PM who would be more inclined to take a harder “Leave means leave” approach. Doesn’t necessarily mean that it would have worked, but you’d have much clearer lines of disagreement.
Of course, that might have broken the Tory Party, which is probably one of the things keeping May going.
Meanwhile, Nigel Farage and some of his allies have apparently been lobbying to get at least one EU member to veto any request from May for an extension on the March 29 deadline.
I don’t think she is at heart a remainer; she presented as such in the referendum campaign because she thought it was politically expedient to do so, but even at the time her remaininess was so obviously watery that a lot of people felt that her heart wasn’t in it, and said so.
And, as Prime Minister, she hewed from fairly early on to a hard Brexit that was not required either by the terms of the referendum result or by the nature of the campaign that had preceded it. I take the point that she may have been doing so partly because of the need to convince others of her Leavish credentials, but that need arises equally whether she is genuinely a remainer or whether she just posed as one for [what she thought at the time was] political advantage.
And I think the hardness of her Brexit stance reflects her own sincere instincts about the need to end free movement and the need to escape the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.
Given the diversity of Brexits offered by the Leave campaign and the narrowness of the leave victory, it’s fairly clear that the median Briton, so to speak, favours Brexit, but a very soft form of Brexit. This was always going to be - and indeed still is - the model of Brexit around which it was going to be easiest to secure some form of consensus involving a degree of loser’s assent, which was clearly going to be needed. May instead chose to move well to the right and target a hard brexit right from the get-go, which was always going to cause her problems. I can’t account for that except by thinking that it accorded with her own instincts.
It now suits aggrievved hard leavers to accuse her - and many others - of being Remainers, but what they really mean by this is “not sufficiently zealous for the extreme form of Brexit that we favour”. On this analysis, someone who supports Brexit, but favours a Norwegian-style relationship with the EU, or a Swiss-style relationship with the EU, or a Turkish-style relationship with the EU, or even someone who favours the much harder relationship that May is targetting, is nevertheless a Remainer. At the same time, all the 17.4 million people who voted for leave are deemed to be true Leavers, on the frankly ludicrous assumption that they all did so because they favoured the purest and most extreme form of Brexit, and will accept no less.
Thanks for the answers.
I have a *modicum *of respect for her for at least stepping up to take charge of Brexit when all the gowls who campaigned for it suddenly decided they had to be washing their hair or something.
But she bollixed it up badly by (a) triggering Article 50 without a plan and (b) calling an election. Both of these were fatal mistakes.
The EU is definitely not as well prepared as they can be: the specific point which comes to mind is they have not yet hired an adequate number of customs officials.
I think they will give May an extension up to May 22 for any reason (EU Parliament elections start May 23). But a longer extension would cause problems for the European Parliament so the EU will only give it for a strong reason. One popular idea is an extension until the end of the budgetary period (December 31, 2020).
Actually they were busy stabbing each other in the back, and in any case were not found appealing enough by their parliamentary colleagues to be put forward to the party members. When it came down to it, she was the only shilling article in a sixpenny bazaar.
I’m with UDS rather than Northern Piper on Theresa May. She’s not a Remainer. She presented herself as one to back what she thought was the winning horse. Contrast with Boris, who is equally duplicitous and sought to back a losing horse to magnify his stature, expecting to lose regardless, a la Trump.
May, and quite a few other senior Conservatives, were labelled as “reluctant remainers”. They disliked the EU government, and the movement for “ever closer union”, but recognised the economic advantages of the free trade agreement and cross-border agencies. Indeed, that was the viewpoint of a substantial amount of remain voters. It’s not surprising that May, having found herself in charge of Brexit, decided on a strategy that would minimise the economic disruption of Brexit, but still seek a significant separation from the EU.
What is surprising is how bad she’s been at the politics of government since she became PM. She’s failed at communication, delegation, personal leadership, and compromise. I think her only choice now is to pray that Parliament itself can find a compromise position through indicative votes that the EU will agree with. I can’t see a third vote on her plan getting a majority unless there are changes to the Irish backstop. I also don’t see her compromising with Corbyn or winning over Labour Leave MP’s. Basically, I think she’s simply hanging on at this point, hoping for either a miracle or someone else to lead Parliament out of this mess.
It doesn’t sound like the EU is particularly eager to consider a different ‘leave’ plan. Didn’t one of their officials say in the last couple of days that the only things the EU was likely to grant more time for were (a) more time to prepare for an exit either under the negotiated plan or under no plan at all if a decision has been arrived at, or (b) for a new referendum.
So instead of the Norway model we’re moving to the Sweden model?
No- the King Arthur Model
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords may not be a sound basis for a system of government but given that a mandate from the masses is what got us into this situation in the first place I’m willing to consider it at this point.
But what if that strange woman turns out to be Teresa May?
Can’t see her in a lake. She’s mostly into fields of wheat.
Is Penny Mordaunt having another go at reality TV? She’s pro-leave, so it kind of works.