Ross Clark Ross Clark

Theresa May should have backed down in her Brexit battle with Parliament

This morning has brought predictable outrage about Tory ‘traitors’. The Prime Minister has been undermined, Guy Verhofstadt has had his fun describing it as a ‘good day for democracy’. The government has been reduced to damage-limitation, suggesting that last night’s defeat – which means that Parliament will now have the final say on a Brexit deal – won’t derail its plans.

That is true. Allowing Parliament the final judgement on the deal almost certainly won’t alter the outcome: Britain will leave the EU on 29 March 2019 with whatever deal the government is able to cut with Michel Barnier and his team. Parliament will not vote it down because the alternatives will be too horrible to contemplate and could well achieve completely the opposite of what yesterday’s rebels would like. A last minute defeat on a Brexit deal would very likely result in us leaving the EU without a deal – and completely unprepared for that scenario. Either that or it would leave us in limbo, half in, half out and with negotiations having to begin all over again, with Britain in an even weaker position than before. It would be politically impossible for the government to call off the whole Brexit thing and continue membership of the EU, even if that is what last night’s rebels would like most.

All of which begs the question: why, then, did the government make such a big show of trying to defeat the rebels? Why, earlier in the week, when Mrs May and her team could see which way the wind was blowing, did they not simply concede and say, yes, Parliament would be granted the final say on the Brexit deal?

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