The parliamentary recess has started and ministers are off on their holidays, just as the tide is turning on Brexit
Last Thursday parliament rose for the summer recess – and given the outbreak of civil war in the Cabinet over public sector pay, that’s probably just as well.
For a moment a couple of weekends ago it looked like the Cabinet was about to rip itself apart, such was the ferocity of the briefings against various Cabinet ministers, with most of the fire power aimed at the Chancellor given his refusal to lift the cap on public sector pay rises.
And with both Boris Johnson and David Davies so obviously on manoeuvres to press their credentials to replace Theresa May, for a moment it looked as if the Conservatives wanted to commit collective political suicide and gift the keys to No 10 to Jeremy Corbyn.
Enjoy your holiday…
Still, now that ministers will be going away for their summer holidays everybody has the opportunity to calm down and cool off. But, as so often is the way of things, I think this episode has actually worked against those who might have been plotting and briefing against Cabinet colleagues.
The reaction from the powerful 1922 Committee has been to back Theresa May, and to signal its support for any minister found to be misbehaving to be sacked. But it’s not long before the Conservative Party conference, and that could be a dangerous time for Theresa May.
Either way, the Conservative Party needs to take a collective deep breath, take the tablets, enjoy recess, and then come back in September looking and behaving as if it actually wants to be in government.
Second referendum?
Last week I said I would return to Brexit. I think it’s increasingly clear that, thanks to the general election, hard Brexit is off the table.
Such is the cross-party support for the “remain” agenda I suspect it will be impossible for Theresa May to get her various Brexit Bills through parliament without major compromises along the way, so I just can’t see how hard Brexit can be delivered, and those who continue to argue for the hardest of hard Brexits aren’t living in the new real world.
There are going to have to be major compromises, and it’s interesting to observe that the talk of some kind of “transitional” Brexit deal, whereby the UK technically leaves the EU but stays in the European Economic Area, gains traction by the day.
Such a transitional deal would honour, technically, the referendum result, but it would make large swathes of those who voted to leave happy too, because I simply do not believe that many “leavers” voted for hard Brexit, or even appreciated the consequences of their vote.
And then in due course we might have a second referendum which, hey presto, results in the UK re-joining the EU. Bear in mind that a second referendum is not without precedent – look at Ireland and its two referenda on the Lisbon Treaty.
An implausible theory? Possibly, but there is no doubt that the tide is turning.
