1. THAT’S ALL FOLKS?
The Cabinet gathers this morning to sign off the sales tactics for Theresa May’s Brexit deal, and then we are in for a hell of a fortnight until the Big Vote in the Commons on Wednesday, December 12. After this weekend’s historic signing of the deal with the EU27, the PM gets up at 3.30pm to make her Commons statement (though the Matthew Hedges news could prompt an Urgent Question that delays things a bit). In her last two marathon sessions, May was monstered by her backbench critics, but will today see a better whipping operation to get our pro-deal MPs earlier in the debate?
French President Emmanuel Macron didn’t exactly make life easy for the PM by suggesting the UK would be stuck in a customs union without escape. More important for No.10 was EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker telling the BBC: “This is the deal, this is the deal… I am never changing my mind…if the House [of Commons] would say no, we will have no deal.” But is this really as good as it gets? Is this really all that’s on offer? Shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer (who has been in close contact with Brussels for months) sounds like he thinks this is as much a bluff as the PM threatening a no-deal outcome. He told the Today programme that the EU had no choice but to take its current stance, adding that if Parliament votes down the deal everybody will look at other options.
Starmer has spent the past year nudging Labour’s position forward (not least his conference ad lib where he said ‘Remain’ would be on the ballot paper of a second referendum). And today he seemed to edge it further again, effectively calling for an extension to Article 50 to allow further talks. And it appears some in the Cabinet agree. The Sun reports that Amber Rudd and Michael Gove are both looking closely at the third way of EFTA membership (aka ‘the Norway’ option), and the DUP is hinting it would consider it. Nick Boles reveals in the Times: “In the last week alone I have been invited in to discuss the Norway plan with four members of the Cabinet, as well as leading members of three opposition parties.”
Everyone is naturally focused on two key dates: December 12 (the ‘meaningful vote’) and March 29 (Exit Day, as legally stipulated). But January 21 could prove to be the most important deadline. That’s the date, in the EU Withdrawal Act, by which May has to come forward with a new statement to Parliament if her deal is voted down at first attempt. Brexiteers and Remainers alike are holding onto that deadline as giving them vital wriggle room to get an alternative.
For now, the Cabinet needs to help May sell her deal. New Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay told Today: “The job of the Cabinet is to make the case in coming days.” Which is a reminder that Gove hasn’t yet come out fighting. Ministers were urged to tweet #BackTheBrexitDeal yesterday, but although Barclay and chairman Brandon Lewis did so, Gove merely retweeted others’ messages rather than post his own. As one Cabinet put it to me last night: “This is not Theresa May’s deal, it’s the Cabinet’s deal.” How many of them really own it today, and in coming days, will be instructive.
2. PRISONER, CELL BLOCKAGE
Theresa May’s most humungous challenge is of course getting this damned thing through Parliament. Imprisoned by the lack of a Commons majority, she has to somehow break free by whittling down the opposition in the next fortnight. No.10 clearly thinks public pressure on MPs to ‘get on with it’ will be a powerful factor, hence the nationwide series of events planned. I said on Friday that public boredom would be a key weapon and Jeremy Hunt on Marr yesterday doubled down on that, warning there were lots of ‘BOBs’ (people ‘Bored of Brexit’) who just want to move on.
Extra blockages to the selling job emerged yesterday as both Labour’s Lisa Nandy and newly-knighted Sir John Hayes said they’d vote against the deal. But Government whips may be helped by some of the inflated figures bandied around on the number of potential rebels. The figure of nearly 90 MPs includes those who have simply backed the StandUp4Brexit campaign, rather than explicitly said they’d vote against the deal. Unlike the secret ballot of a Tory party no confidence vote, the ‘meaningful vote’ will be very public indeed and backbenchers will have to justify their decision to their constituents and local party alike.
Will we really get Theresa May taking part in a live TV debate with Jeremy Corbyn? The Telegraph reports that’s the No.10 plan, though the Times has a source saying such an idea is “unlikely, though there had been no final decision”. The broadcasters will surely push for a debate and last night Corbyn’s spokesman announced he would ‘relish’ taking part. I guess the logic of those near May backing the idea is that turning this into a PMQs-with-knobs-on would expose Corbyn’s lack of detail and remind Tory MPs of the danger of siding with Labour. The risk is the Labour leader could look like he’s the one uniting both Remainers and Leavers in pointing to the flaws in the deal. One aide tells the Telegraph, without irony, that the next few weeks will “be like a mini election campaign”. Well, we know how the last one ended.
3. BILL STICKERS
The first big artillery barrage in the oncoming infowars was fired at midnight as the People’s Vote campaign released highlights from a study claiming May’s Brexit deal will cost the UK the equivalent of losing the economic output of Wales or the City of London. Before you say ‘well, they’re mad Remainers, they would say that wouldn’t they?’, note that the report was conducted by the highly respected and independent National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR).
NIESER says May’s plan will reduce the value of the UK economy by 3.9% – or £100bn a year by 2030 – compared to staying in the EU. According to the study, this would be an average cost of more than £1,000 a person. It also forecasts said that the cost of a no deal exit would be even higher – slashing GDP by 5.5 per cent, or £140bn a year. Expect more detail at 11.30am when the full report is published. The Treasury is expected to publish its own impact assessment on Wednesday and that really will be a big deal, not least as it was recently forced by the Commons to include staying in the EU as a ‘baseline’ for calculations of May’s deal and no deal. Will ministers be able to make their figures stick, in the minds of MPs let alone the public?
On the Today programme on Saturday (I know, few people were up then) Chancellor Philip Hammond was asked if he thought May’s deal was better than staying in the EU. He replied: “I believe so, yes.” Was that rash bravado? Or will the Treasury figures somehow back him up? If so, they may well be ridiculed by both Remainers and Leavers as yet more ‘Project Fear’. Hammond also warned of an instant backlash if MPs voted down May’s deal: “I am sure we would get a very negative reaction from the business community, from investors, from the markets.”
BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR…
Everyone remembers the hilarious kid invasion of an academic talking via Skype about North Korea last year. Well that ‘BBC Dad’ now was an Al Jazeera rival. Watch terrorism expert Zafar Jaspal of Quaid-e-Azam University gesture at his son to get the hell out of shot as he appears live on air.
4. HEALTH SCARE
The government has been accused of ‘scaremongering’ about so-called EU ‘health tourism’ after new figures revealed there had been just two definite cases of fraud involving the EU health insurance card in the past three years. Our HuffPost Freedom of Information request also found there had been just seven such fraud cases since 2010. The sum total of the fraud seems to run to hundreds of pounds, not thousands or millions. And yet ministers regularly state that fraud involving the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) is nearly £19m a year or £200m over 10 years. The NHS itself says 2% of total card uses result in fraud and error (the error bit is important), suggesting 5,400 cases a year. But the Government couldn’t explain the discrepancies when we asked.
5. OIL PRICE
Yet more news from the US about Donald Trump trying to use his bar-room politics onto the international scene. Axios reports that the President last year actually suggested to the Iraqi PM that his country should hand over oil fields in return for the costs of the war to topple Saddam. His then national security adviser HR McMaster admonished Trump, pointing out the idea was bad for America’s reputation, would spook allies and make America look “like criminals and thieves ”. Apparently Trump repeated his demand in another meeting last year (’Why don’t we take the oil?) Defense Secretary Jim Mattis repeated the McMaster objections.
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