The British Daily Mail and Express newspapers have printed ecstatic front pages about the Prime Minister's latest manoeuvre in Parliament. Apparently she has settled a majority in the House of Commons in supporting a specific Brexit plan and at the same time she has united the Tory Party and 'defeated' Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the British Labour Party.
The less jingoistic commentators pointed out that May's new plan (which is her old plan minus what is called 'the backstop) would not be accepted by the EU. Indeed, the initial comments by EU leaders following her 'victory' on the evening of the 29 January, directly opposed May's proposal. They point-blank refused that the the legal definition of the backstop should be re-opened from May's previously accepted proposal. The EU's stance, it was argued, would therefore return May to exactly the same point she was in before the 29 January. That is, she would face a deeply split Tory Party and no majority Brexit plan among the MPs. Then May would be seen as an absolute failure and new proposals for Brexit (including a possible new referendum) would be 'back on the table.'
History may repeat itself when it moves from tragedy to farce - but it never repeats its content. The tragedy may shape the farce but both of these states of history are also unique. The Mail and Express writers and their more thoughtful colleagues have entirely missed the point of May's latest initiative.
May has made a great deal of the 'meaning' of the 2016 Referendum vote for Brexit. She has argued for example that coming out of the EU's Custom Union and the EU's 'single market' are actually decisions made by the referendum vote itself. In her speech on the 29th she 'promised' full equivalence between British workers rights and their European counterparts. Indeed she hinted that she might go further. All this is rubbish of course. In fact May is not interested in the content of the 'deal'. No doubt she has to give a nod to her own Brexit Manifesto commitments from her disastrous election of 2017. But her real purpose? Here May has a clear set of immovable priorities.
First; she should remain PM at all costs. Even her 'self sacrifice' not to stand in the next General Election was presented as conditional on whether her Party wanted her and in any case not before the 'end' of Brexit (which will spin-out way beyond 2020.) Second (and a requirement of the first priority) she would keep the Tory Party unified. And the third priority - her only deep political commitment outside of herself and her political ballast - to prevent at all costs a Corbyn led Labour Party winning a General Election. This is what Prime Minster May offers to the future - and to Britain's ruling class. She hopes her last priority in particular will go some of the way to reconciling her leadership to the class that the Tories were built to defend.
How does May's insular but deep-rooted priorities work out in the here and now?
May perfectly well understands two things about her latest approach to the EU; first the EU needs to defend their union, particularly before the May European Parliamentary elections where Europe's new right-wing will flower. But that means that they need to show that the UK remains, albeit to a negative degree, dependent on the EU. (This is not about loss of car sales to the UK. German car manufacturers are much more interested in selling cars to China than most British Brexiteers imagine.) The issue for Germany in particular is that it is well aware of the possible impact of a European Singapore. The EU are opposed to a 'no-deal,' not because there will be empty shops and no insulin in the UK. They are opposed, particularly in Germany's case, to being damaged by a fierce, tax-free, virtual slave-labour competition. As a result, a convoluted piece of legalism, a great skill in EU corridors, is the most likely thing to emerge from May's second EU campaign.
Secondly, according to her own priorities, May, while hoping for an early and easy result from the EU, believes that she personally and politically can win either way. Should the EU slip up, or their legal language prove unsuccessful in Britain, who is then to blame? Certainly not Britain's valiant PM. And she appears not just innocent of failure but the only key to further Tory unity. May, whose orientation has always been towards the 'no deal' Brexiteers - because they are the strongest element of her Party - would sadly respect the consequence of the EU' hard headed intransigence' (should it prove necessary.)
Nothing is certain in a convulsive political crisis and accidents happen, but in the general trend of things May's nemesis will not come about as a result of Tory annoyance at her battles with the EU (and neither from a deeply unlikely 'no deal Brexit.') It will come from a General Election. May would probably fall at the moment it is announced. It is unlikely she will be left to deliver another Tory disaster. But an election will not come from Brexit tricks in a corrupt and decrepit Parliament. It will come when the majority of people in Britain recognise May's real priorities, when they disentangle themselves from divided Brexit tribes and focus on those across Britain who are already challenging Britain's (and the EU's) desperately failing politics and economics.
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