It has been another momentous week in post-Brexit British politics. On Monday, Prime Minster Boris Johnson survived a no confidence vote with 211 Tory MPs expressing their confidence in him, against 148 who cast their vote against him. Despite the failure of the no confidence motion, the result constitutes a considerable setback for the PM. Indeed, the result is worse than Theresa May’s in 2018 when she survived a non-confidence vote thanks to the backing of 63% of Tory MPs, while only 59% backed Johnson on Monday.
The no confidence vote leaves the PM weakened. Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 Committee, did not rule out a change in party rules that could allow another no confidence vote in less than a year. With 41% of Tory MPs opposed to the PM and two by-elections taking place later this month – which are predicted to be difficult for the Conservatives to win with Labour leading the Conservatives by 20 points in the Northern constituency of Wakefield, Johnson is desperate to shore up support.
The weakened Prime Minister seems to seek that support amongst the most extreme right-wing fringe of the Conservative party, namely the European Research Group (ERG). Indeed, besides Partygate, one of the reasons for decreasing confidence in the PM arguably was that Johnson had started to adopt somewhat more conciliatory rhetoric towards the EU on key Brexit issues, most notably the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP). Monday’s vote means the Prime Minister will sway back towards the far-right of the Brexit path and will seek to re-radicalise the Brexit project so as to re-ignite the Brexit fire that saw him gain an 80 seat majority in the 2019 General Election. Yet, the re-radicalisation of Brexit threatens not only to spark off a major crisis with the EU over Northern Ireland, but also undoing some of the more reasonable policies the Johnson government has adopted in the past 3 years to make them palatable to the Tory hard-right.
Weakened, under pressure, and at the mercy of the extremist ERG, Johnson is about to become a real danger for the UK, its economy, and international reputation. His unwavering and unlimited sense of entitlement, combined with his dark personality, and hunger for power (illustrated by his lifelong ambition to become ‘world king’) are such that he will not stop from anything to retain power. While living in hard-Brexit Britain has felt like living in a burning house for some time, after Monday’s no confidence vote, it now feels like the PM is willing to burn down the whole village - indeed the whole world if need be - to remain in power. His attempt to turn purely symbolic policies into desperate, but substantive ones and the issue of the NIP legislation illustrate this.
Desperate policies
Brexit is largely about symbolism and slogans, very little about substance. Yet, as the economic damage of Brexit becomes ever clearer and distinguishable from the impact of Covid, it would seem that some sense of reality has started to penetrate the Tory party. Most dramatically, the Tory MP Tobias Ellwood recently suggested the UK should re-join the EU Single Market. That suggestion drew a lot of criticism even from relatively moderate Tories (most importantly perhaps Tom Tugendhat’s rejection of that suggestion). Yet, it clearly shows that some in the Tory party do seem to realise that the problems caused by Brexit are becoming too big to be simply ignored. Thus, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), forecasts that UK GDP growth will slow down to 0% in 2023 – the slowest of the G7 and only above Russia among the G20 countries. The Bank of America, in turn, considers that the “failure to discuss and acknowledge that Brexit has been a significant headwind to the supply side and sense that the BoE is losing control over its mandate” means that the British Pound Sterling is facing an ‘existential crisis’ similar to emerging market economies! Brexiters’ denial of reality starts putting the country’s economy into serious danger.
Given these undeniable facts, it seems astonishing that ahead of the non-confidence vote, 22 Conservative donors called on Conservative MPs to support the PM during the non-confidence vote stating that “Business needs certainty and stability. […] so we need Boris Johnson to remain as our Prime Minister, and he has our unwavering support”. Where exactly they detected ‘certainty and stability’ remains their secret.
Yet, while denial, omerta, and taboos still prevail when it comes to Brexit in the Tory party, this weeks developments do indicate some change may be coming.
Thus, the Northern Research Group (NRG) warned the PM that the Tory party would face political annihilation in the so-called Red Wall seats in Northern England if no substance was given to the levelling up policy programme, prompting the PM reportedly to promise large northern areas as ‘right to devolution’ and a ‘levelling up formula’ akin to the Barnett formula that is used to allocate budgets to devolved nations. It would seem that even the PM has understood the need to turn some of his symbolic policies into more substantive ones.
Yet, the combination of concern about the cost-of-living crisis and the PM seeking support from the right-wing of the Tory party, means policies that are considered ‘unconservative’ or anti-business are being dropped. This in turn means in most cases, that some of the more reasonable policies proposed by the Johnson government may be undone. Thus, it is expected that the recommendations of the Dimbleby report on food strategy – including a sugar and salt reformulation tax, guarantee farm subsidies until 2029 or invest £1bn in innovation in the food system – will be ignored, because they are expected to add costs. Similarly, possibly the only genuine benefit of Brexit – a more ecological agricultural policy – is now considered ‘green crap’ and will be sacrificed on the altar of ‘food security.’
Needless to say, Johnson’s symbolic policies turning into desperate policies is not going to solve any of the issues they are meant to address (which incidentally become bigger and more difficult every day that passes and the government remains in denial of reality – such as the continuing rise in regional inequalities in the country despite all the talk about levelling up). Indeed, given the desperation Johnson’s policies become even more half-baked (like the extension of the right-to-buy scheme) and reckless (like accepting the increasingly likely exclusion of the UK from the EU’s Horizon programme). However, possibly the worst result of the non-confidence vote is its impact on Northern Ireland.
The NIP: Tinder sticks and matches
The PM facing the possibility of losing his grip on power has meant that he now desperately needs the legislation on the Northern Ireland Protocol that would allow the UK parliament to unilaterally disapply parts of the protocol, rather than finding a negotiated solution with the EU. The Bill is expected to be published on Monday. It is not clear yet whether it will simply give the UK government enabling powers to unilaterally suspend parts of the NIP in the future, or whether it will actually disapply them directly (what Tony Connelly calls the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ versions of the legislation). What does seem clear is that the Bill will make unilateral changes to four key areas of the agreement: Customs, VAT and government subsidies, regulatory divergence, and governance (European Court of Justice oversight). As such, the Bill may go further than the Internal Market Bill discussed in 2020 and is extremely controversial even inside the Tory party and indeed government, as is illustrated by the saga about the legal advice preceding its publication, analysed by David Allen Green.
While in September 2020, the government was still confident (delusional?) enough to openly admit that its ‘Internal Market Bill’ would break international law, it now understands that it needs to at least pretend what it is doing is legal. As a result, ahead of the publication of the bill, the government was keen on getting the right kind of legal opinion that would confirm its legality. The government found the right person to deliver that in Attorney General Suella Braverman. Yet, due to leaked correspondence, it has now become clear that some within the government clearly did not trust that advice and appear to have pressed the government to get an additional opinion from the First Treasury Counsel Sir James Eadie. The government obliged, but asked the Counsel to give his opinion based on the assumption that there is indeed a ‘respectable legal basis’ on which other lawyers have given their opinion. In other words, the government did not seem confident that the First Treasury Counsel would reach the same verdict as the Attorney General and therefore asked Eadie to not question that verdict (indeed, between the lines Eadie does seem to make it clear that he does not share the Attorney General’s views).
The whole episode illustrates two things: the government has learned from its previous experience that it cannot simply openly ignore its commitments under international law and is now making efforts to dress up its actions as legal, although those efforts seem like little more than a robber declaring that robbery is no longer illegal. Secondly, it is obvious that the issue of Northern Ireland and the way in which the government is handling it is hugely contentious even within the Tory party and possibly the cabinet. It is indeed expected that the Bill’s reading in Parliament will be a bumpy ride with the House of Lords expected to try and amend it. Even in the House of Commons, despite Johnson’s 80 seat majority, the bill may see considerable opposition. The Huffington Post reported on a document shared amongst Tory backbenchers that asks Tory MPs to vote against the bill, reportedly stating that the bill is “the exact opposite of focusing on the cost of living and pursuing the people’s priorities, as we have been promised” and should be scrapped. The upcoming parliamentary debate and votes about NIP legislation almost inevitably will mean more humbling for Johnson and his government by the forces of reality.
Yet, if he does manage to get the bill through Parliament – which is expected to take a year – it may indeed save his neck. At least that is what he may hope. If the bill does become law, the EU is expected to react strongly, but in a gradual way. The reaction will most likely consist in first launching legal action against the UK government, and then possibly introducing punitive tariffs on British goods exported to the EU. Scrapping the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) is a possible, albeit unlikely, extreme measure if the previous measures do not force the UK government back to the negotiating table. Punitive tariffs or even the end of the TCA would be awful news for the faltering UK economy and businesses, but it would be good news for Johnson personally. A trade war with the EU would allow him to squarely blame the EU for any further economic damage stemming from Brexit and would replace Covid19 as a new confounding factor that makes it impossible to assess the impact of Johnson’s hard Brexit on UK trade and economic performance. Indeed, any punitive action by the UK would make it very difficult to judge Johnson’s ‘world-class’ Brexit deal on its own (de)merits, focussing all the blame instead on the EU’s reaction. The PM therefore now has strong incentives to escalate the row over the NIP to prolong the possibility to remain dishonest about Brexit’s real impact. Evidence that the government attributes high importance to the NIP Bill is provided by the fact that the government to even seek “to mislead its very own backbenchers over the legality of the proposals for the Northern Irish Protocol.” After the non-confidence vote, the legislation may turn into the match in the PM’s hand that finally sets fire to the tinder sticks of Northern Ireland.
Eternal limbo or hellfire?
Some of the most often heard terms descriptors of the current Brexit situation are limbo or aporia, i.e. “a place you can't go back or forward from”. The problem, of course, is that limbo or aporia are the necessary result that have been hardwired into the Brexit project because of its inbuilt dishonestly. Indeed, as Matt Carr succinctly puts it “[t]o acknowledge post-Brexit problems now would risk exposing the dishonesty and delusion at the heart of the Brexit project in the first place.” Moreover, recent polls shows that the nationalistic jingoism and vague promises around Brexit before it became a reality are the only things that Tory MPs have in common with their electorate, while they are hopelessly out of touch with their voter base when it comes to their economic values as a recent poll suggests. Therefore, Tories simply cannot afford to admit that Brexit is not going well. Brexit must not be named in connection with any problems emerging from it (although, when it comes to rejecting criticism of government policies, Brexiters quickly allege the critics ‘anti-Brexit’ leaning to as explain any challenge).
In this context, it would seem obvious that the opposition may have a crucial role to play to move us out of the limbo. Indeed, Chris Grey sees an opportunity for the Labour party to lead the country out of the impasse. Yet, this week’s performance by Yvette Cooper when questioned by Andrew Marr about re-joining the Single Market does not instil much confidence that this is going to happen any time soon. Ms Cooper clearly was unwilling or unable to take a clear position on what Labour’s plan for a better post-Brexit trading arrangement with the EU would look like, only referring to the negotiation of a ‘veterinary agreement’ with the EU to smooth trade frictions. (Her exact words in the interview were ‘veterinary agreement and so on…’ While the veterinary agreement with the EU is an obvious necessary step in fixing some of the post-Brexit trade issues, what the ‘and so on’ was referring to did not become clear). Indeed, it seems obvious that – contrary to the Lib Dems – Labour does not have a clear plan on post-Brexit trade.
Yet, with Johnson re-radicalising the Brexit project to please the ERG, there is a possibility that Brexit will become unstuck in another way. Given the EU’s and US’s strength of feeling about Northern Ireland, the strategy to seek an escalation of the Northern Ireland issue to save his neck, may very well backfire not just on Johnson but on the radical Brexit fringe as a whole. This may usher in the change in Tory leadership the country so desperately needs. Yet, this way of Brexit coming unstuck would mean the necessary return to reason and to policy-making in the national interest will pass through a phase of unleashing hellfire. Indeed, as Sky News’ Sam Coates warns, it could all end in flames. Six years after the ill-advised Brexit Referendum, Britain is facing another critical moment in its Brexit journey.