After 24 hours of political drama at Westminster, with Brexit secretary David Davis threatening to resign, Theresa May has emerged with a proposal for the Border backstop that would keep the whole of the United Kingdom in the EU customs territory.
The concession Davis secured – a line saying the British government expects the backstop to end by December 2021 – has no real force because Britain has already agreed that the arrangement will stay in place “unless and until” another solution is found to ensure the Border remains open.
In a letter to Conservative MPs on Thursday night, the prime minister said the backstop would be part of the Withdrawal Agreement, so that it will not apply if there is no deal.
“And we will only agree a Withdrawal Agreement if alongside it and linked to it we have an agreement on the terms of our future relationship that would include our future customs arrangements outside the customs union,” she said.
The proposal has delighted the DUP because it would apply the backstop to the whole of the UK rather than creating a separate arrangement for Northern Ireland. And May’s confrontation with her Brexiteer ministers will encourage pro-EU Conservatives to fall into line when the EU Withdrawal Bill returns to the Commons next week.
Backbench rebels
The prime minister met a number of potential backbench rebels in Downing Street for an hour on Wednesday in what one backbencher described as a very good meeting. For two days next week, MPs will consider 15 amendments to the Bill that were approved by the Lords.
The government has already proposed watered-down versions of three of the amendments and is expected to offer compromises on others in the next few days. Because Labour is not backing an amendment that would keep Britain in the European Economic Area (EEA) after Brexit, the only amendment with any chance of success is one calling on the government to show by October that it had tried to negotiate a customs union with the EU.
Pro-EU Conservatives suggested on Thursday, however, that even this amendment is unlikely to succeed, not least because more substantive amendments on the customs union will come before MPs when a trade Bill is debated next month.
The prime minister’s proposal on the backstop must still, of course, survive contact with EU negotiators, who have until now shown no appetite for extending it from Northern Ireland to the rest of the UK. And the document itself acknowledges that it is incomplete because it does not address the issue of regulatory standards and how to avoid regulatory checks at the Border.
Britain will remain effectively inside the customs union and the single market for almost two years in the transition period after Brexit, and the backstop proposal suggests that a similar arrangement could persist after that.
The December 2021 end date for the backstop amounts to no more than an aspiration from a government with a very modest track record for getting things done.
Nine months
So, two years after the Brexit vote and nine months from the day Britain leaves the EU, Brexiteers are increasingly despondent while Remainers can scarcely believe how far the government’s policy has moved in their direction.
In January last year, May set out in her Lancaster House speech her three red lines: no customs union, no single market and no jurisdiction for the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
The backstop proposal acknowledges that Britain could remain effectively in the customs union, the single market and under ECJ jurisdiction at least until the end of 2021.
Many Brexiteers fear that the arrangement will be indefinite and that, because it is nominally temporary, it will serve as a disincentive for businesses to invest in Britain.
Most are willing to swallow what May herself described in her letter to MPs as an “unpalatable” option if it is the only way of ensuring that Britain actually leaves the EU in March 2019.
For Remainers, the unsatisfactory nature of such an arrangement is an opportunity, and when the final deal is agreed with Brussels, hardcore Remainers can be expected to pose the question: if Britain is to remain bound by EU rules without having a role in shaping them, what is the point of leaving at all?