The pragmatic British Prime Minister, Teresa May, needs to sort out the Brexit split in her cabinet. There is a division between those ministers who want to take a hard line on stopping all free movement of people from the European Union (EU), which might mean a much downgraded free trade arrangement, and those who are more flexible and would not mind a compromise on both movement and trade. May dodged the issue this week when she had a special cabinet meeting, ahead of the forthcoming parliamentary session, and made the easy comments that “Brexit means Brexit” and confirmed that moving ahead would not need either a parliamentary vote or a new referendum.
These relatively obvious political steps may win her some short-term credits, but she still has to tackle the substantive issues of what Brexit will look like in reality. She cannot afford to let it drift for too long and at the Conservative party conference she will be judged by the party members on how clear she and her cabinet ministers are able to be.
The massed Tory faithful are very sensitive to anything like a fudge and they will take some delight in ending the exceptional honeymoon period of her leadership.
And leaving aside any internal Conservative politics, it is important for Britain that it defines the terms that it is looking for, as the current profound uncertainty is damaging to the country, to its future relationship with the EU and the many new relationships that a post-Brexit Britain will seek with the rest of the world. Several significant targets of Brexiteers’ enthusiasm have refused to discuss any deal with the United Kingdom until it defines what its relationship will be with the EU.
At least May was clear that Britain will be looking for a “unique” deal, by which she seemed to say that membership of European Free Trade Association or copying Norway’s option is not on the cards. This makes a lot of sense as the complications of such a significant member of the EU leaving make for a unique situation. And while the issues of trade and movement of people are politically sensitive, there should be a lot less sensitivity over other issues like technical standards, which Britain would be foolish to abandon and go back to some mythical imperial set of measurements, making trade and services more difficult just for the sake of UK’s national pride.
