to any British PM. But in truth, it was par-
ticularly unacceptable to her because she is
reliant on the Democratic Unionist Party
for her parliamentary majority. On nearly
every issue, the DUP have a price. But not
the Union: that is priceless to them. If they
sense that Mrs May is putting the Union at
risk, there will be no repairing that breach, no
matter how much special funding for North-
ern Ireland is on offer.
May is now faced with an unpalatable
choice: a Northern Ireland-specific backstop
that would enrage the DUP, alarm the Scot-
tish Conservatives and upset Unionist MPs,
or a UK-wide backstop that would allow us
to leave only with the EU’s permission. This
would enrage her party and be the bad deal
she has so often warned about.
On Sunday Dominic Raab, the Brexit Sec-
retary, went to Brussels to stress that a deal
couldn’t be done on these terms. Mrs May
cannot proceed with anything that leaves her
choosing between stiffing the DUP or stiffing
the Brexiteers. But the EU is unsympathetic:
Michel Barnier worked hard to back the Brits
into this corner. Why let them escape now?
The widespread belief in Brussels is that the
UK will, in time, swallow whatever deal is
offered — however unpalatable — because
Mrs May has closed off all other options. It
sees how the UK has backed down before in
these talks. It sees how little serious no-deal
planning has been done. It calculates that
there is another climbdown coming. But this
is a dangerous assumption. It overestimates
Mrs May’s room for manoeuvre. Tellingly,
when she met the cabinet this week, no one
wanted to accept what the EU was offering.
What happens next? Well, the best option
in the current circumstances is an all-UK
backstop that would come with an exit mech-
anism. The House of Commons would almost
certainly prefer this kind of deal to no deal.
Another option is being whispered about
in private by cabinet ministers: a mitigated
‘no deal’. The UK would pay the EU money
in exchange for a series of mini agreements
that would ensure that the planes could keep
flying, that customs checks were kept as man-
ageable as possible, and the EU and the UK
could trade together in the way that advanced
economies do when they don’t have a trade
agreement. It would be expensive. I under-
stand that at cabinet this week Philip Ham-
mond explicitly argued that the UK should
pay the EU almost all of the £39 billion, even
if it leaves without a deal, to facilitate these
kinds of arrangements. An acrimonious no
deal is still an option, with Mrs May reneg-
ing on whatever she promised last December
— with significant disruption. Ironically, this
would hit Ireland as hard, if not harder, than
the United Kingdom.
At various points, Mrs May’s
negotiators have believed that
they were the clever ones There has been a subtle shift in recent
days within the cabinet. Ministers who used
to say Britain could not possibly leave with-
out a deal are now starting to say they could
not possibly give in to this pressure from
Brussels. One cabinet member — a Brexit
swing-voter — now believes Mrs May should
start to tell voters how tough no deal will be
but that the EU may well have left us with no
respectable alternative. The threat of cabinet
resignations has also receded (for the time
being). Nothing is being agreed with the EU,
so there is nothing to walk out over.
But no deal still poses a host of prob-
lems. First, the lack of preparation — which
is, amazingly, deliberate. Mr Hammond was
reluctant to fund no-deal planning, worrying
that if he gave his colleagues a plan for how to
deal with no deal, they’d take it. Serious plan-
ning only started this summer. It would be a
special kind of incompetence to end up in a
no-deal scenario, while not having properlyprepared for it. Public anger at EU intransi-
gence would soon be replaced with irritation
at the bungling British government.
This is assuming that no deal is allowed to
proceed. The reason that so many Remain-
leaning MPs put up with John Bercow staying
as Speaker — despite the culture of bullying
he has presided over — is because they think
he’ll help them block a no-deal Brexit.
A second referendum is still a possibility.
Voters would be asked to choose between a
no-deal Brexit, or abandoning the whole idea
of Brexit. With the Tory party split on what to
do, handing this choice over to the elector-
ate might become the easiest thing to do. The
EU would certainly move the March dead-
line, if it thought the Brits would come crawl-
ing back. Or there could be a reason able deal.
But that would require both sides to realise
what the other can and cannot accept. The
EU cannot expect the UK to, essentially, cede
a part of its territory. Nor can the UK expect
to keep so many benefits of EU membership,
having decided to leave.
The issue of the Irish border has made
both the UK and the EU forget these truths.
But if no deal is agreed, the outcome would
be precisely what both sides say they do not
want: a hard border in Ireland.BREXIT: DEAL OR NO DEAL?
Spectator subscribers are invited to join
James Forsyth, David Davis, Ken Clarke
and Fraser Nelson on 29 October to debate
what happens next: tickets available at
‘How many shopping days are there till Brexit?’ spectator.co.uk/nodeal.The Quiet Life
You’re not ready for the seasons
to go out of fashion — reliant as ever
on the shutting of doors
against September chill,
on streets emptied of tourists,
schoolchildren and the usefully employed.Not ready to let go what might be
the last of the quiet life, before all
the hiding-places have been exposed
and the mind-reading technologies kick in
and the innocence of solitude
and thought itself, is no more.Here’s to seeping birdsong, in fields
of marshy calm; of wondering which
is rain-cloud, which the lateness of afternoon,
as your diligent neighbour wheels
a bicycle and her day
through the gates and home.
— Ian Harrow