British politics does not easily lend itself to cross-party consensus on anything, let alone Brexit
than a month of cross-party talks, pressure to reach a deal should be mounting. It was ratcheted up by the local elections on May 2nd, in which Theresa May’s Tories made a staggering net loss of 1,334 council seats and Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour unexpectedly lost 82, while the anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats and Greens each made substantial gains. Somewhat paradoxically, the two main parties chose to interpret these results as a call from the electorate for an early Brexit deal.
Both parties duly promised to intensify negotiations on a Brexit deal that would pass Parliament. Real progress had been made, claimed Downing Street. An agreement on a temporary customs union that would last at least until 2022 was mooted. Yet no sooner had talks resumed on May 7th than they stalled again. Labour insisted it was ready to compromise but the government was unwilling to shift its red lines.
The deeper reason is the political background. Labour has no interest in rescuing a Tory party on the edge of total meltdown. Mr McDonnell put it well when he likened the idea to entering into a contract with a company going into administration. The opposition fears that any agreement it might reach with Mrs May could be torn up by a hardline pro-Brexit successor such as Boris Johnson, a former foreign secretary. There is no simple way to “Boris-proof” any Brexit deal.
Pressure on Mrs May is certainly rising. A poll for the Conservative Home website finds that 82% of party members want her to go. Every day there is talk of fresh deadlines for her departure. The rules of the 1922 committee of Tory backbenchers mean that, since she won a leadership contest last December, she is immune to a further challenge until next December. This week the committee chose yet again not to change this.
This week the government belatedly admitted these elections would happen. As a new report on the European elections and Brexit from thein a Changing Europe think-tank notes, such “second-order” elections usually see strong protest votes. This time the Tories expect to be hammered by Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party. The combined vote-share of Labour and the Tories may fall to its lowest since the second world war. No doubt the two parties will again say this means Brexit must be sorted.
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