The Brexit negotiations are becoming so complicated that even the cabinet admits that it doesn’t understand what is going on. The Prime Minister has been told by several of her colleagues that they won’t back any deal she agrees until they have seen written legal advice, setting out what it means. If a Brexit deal is going to be impenetrable even to secretaries of state who have followed every step of the negotiations, what hope does the public have?
This extraordinary state of affairs was summed up by the cabinet meeting this week during which ministers discussed where the negotiations stand. Theresa May would agree on the money to pay the EU, but not the full terms of Brexit: those negotiations would be ongoing. She would also commit to Northern Ireland staying aligned with EU rules on goods to avoid a hard border. The rest of the UK might agree to follow EU rules as well. This is to avoid triggering the backstop, which would see Northern Ireland put under a separate regime to the rest of the UK, if the UK diverged from the EU.
It’s not a particularly attractive plan, but it’s being sold to the cabinet on the grounds that the alternative — a ‘no deal’ Brexit — would be even worse. In the cabinet meeting, David Lidington, Theresa May’s de facto deputy, said that he was the only one of them who had been an MP on Black Wednesday and he could remember the turmoil. A no-deal Brexit would repeat this drama, he said, with all of the political consequences. Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, made the same case. But the rest of the cabinet is becoming less inclined to accept this — with ministers asserting themselves more and more.
I understand that Mrs May was trying to wrap up the meeting by 11.15 a.m.,
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