Three outcomes seem more likely than not after Theresa’s May’s appearance before the EU summit. One, that EU leaders will confirm a shorter than requested extension to the Article 50 deadline but will make no substantial change to the withdrawal package.
Two, next Tuesday and Wednesday, MPs will find ways of defeating her deal while endorsing the extension to 22 May as required. No Deal by any name will not happen next week.
Three, with no agreement reached, the EU will hold an emergency summit on the eve of crashout on Thursday. May will report the Commons verdicts and suggest that a longer delay is inevitable. The leaders will extend the deadline for many months. They would be advised to avoid prescribing firm conditions for fear of jeopardising the very outcome they favour. The Commons will vote for the long extension and Theresa May will resign as indicated.
The main parties will test their internal cohesion in the Euro elections nobody wants. Everyone will be very cross but demonstrators will not wreck Oxford St as violent gilets jaunes damaged smart premises on the Champs Elysées three times this year so far. There will be much foreboding for the future of the Union even as the immediate threat looks like easing.
Although larger than usual and despite clear gains for Leave, the Euro election results will be hard to read because of the size of the poll. Nevertheless the main parties will feel impelled to restore party discipline in the Commons by agreeing to hold a general election perhaps in the autumn, with the Tories led by a compromise candidate like Jeremy Hunt.
This election will be Jeremy Corbyn’s last hurrah. Despite SNP gains Labour will fail to win enough seats to form a minority government with SNP support. In the campaign a Hunt figure will not make Leave promises to the DUP. He will steer closer to Canada at first but will opt finally for consensus. He will settle closer to Norway and negotiate the Commons majority in favour of it. An implacable Brexiteer minority may secede to form yet another independent grouping, thereby imperilling the new government’s working majority. But with lessons learned, the Commons as a whole will not rock the boat too hard or too soon.
It is just possible that a new British government will be shamed into activity over Stormont, encouraged by concluding the essential truce over Brexit with Dublin. Any Brexit withdrawal agreement will require the recasting of the battered British-Irish relationship and some sort of role for the Assembly. While it will take some time to formulate, this will a powerful incentive for restoring it. It holds out the hope of replacing the backstop with the EU- endorsed free trade and harmonised regulation in these islands everybody wants.
Both governments and parliaments will need to deploy their leverage actively to negotiate the restoration based less on the sticking points and more on reform of the blocking mechanism of the petition of reform and other obstacles. The existing simple majority for equal marriage in the Assembly would unlock further changes including a recast programme for government. But it will only be achieved by consistent joint pressure and encouragement from London and London and the involvement of all the local parties, after years of lamentable neglect.
Former BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; Current Affairs Commissioning editor BBC Radio 4; Editor Political and Parliamentary Programmes, BBC Westminster; former London Editor Belfast Telegraph. Hon Senior Research Fellow, The Constitution Unit, Univ Coll. London
Discover more from Slugger O'Toole
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
