Theresa May, the British Prime Minister, and the Conservatives have had a better few months. While the Windrush debacle has been deeply embarrassing for all concerned, the British Government has nevertheless proved to be stronger and more competent than many detractors allowed. In rallying most western countries into a joint and massive expulsion of Russian intelligence officers, ministers pulled off a considerable diplomatic success. Their response to the use of chemical weapons in Syria was well-judged and left Labour divided and floundering. Recent months have also seen a competent budget and the maintenance of reasonable economic confidence despite all the uncertainties of Brexit. Many aspects of the EU withdrawal agreement have been nailed down in a constructive spirit. The Tories are even credited with a small poll lead.
Yet, it would be very easy for this hard-earned progress to be lost in short order, and for the government soon to be in the midst of an existential crisis. For in the next two months, the Brexit process reaches a crossroads where the irreconcilable requirements of assuaging business sentiment, securing future trading freedom and maintaining an open border with Ireland meet and have to be sacrificed, amended or assured. The question of whether the United Kingdom stays in a Customs Union with the European Union (EU) is integral to all those issues, and thus is becoming the fundamental and decisive controversy.
By June, a solution to the Irish border issue will either be in sight, or the whole prospect of a Brexit deal will again be in doubt. And by then, the government will have been unable to avoid a series of occasions on which the Commons considers a Customs Union, with no guarantee at all that Theresa May’s policy of leaving it can command a majority.
Unless the Conservatives find a disciplined and collective way through this, these problems will feed on each other. The prospect of Government defeats in parliament will embolden EU negotiators to take a harder line; no solution to the Irish border acceptable to the UK will be agreed; a majority of the Commons might then vote for a Customs Union; many pro-Brexit Tories would say they cannot abide by that; and the conduct of the negotiations and credible government becomes almost or actually impossible. It’s a grim but plausible scenario.
Avoiding this requires, first of all, discipline at the top of government. Reports of a Number 10 adviser saying they “wouldn’t be crying” if defeated on the Customs Union and suggesting that “only” British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Secretary of Trade Liam Fox would quit if a change in policy is the sort of thing that can bring catastrophe. Nothing undermines a leader more than the idea taking hold that you don’t mind having something imposed on you, because from then on, everyone will try to impose their view in a free-for-all. Most of all, however, it requires other Tories consciously to avoid the elephant traps so obviously prepared for them — traps designed to bring down the entire Government or to humiliate Britain in the negotiations. The first has been prepared by the Labour Party, by saying they will join rebel Tories in voting to insist on a Customs Union.
The EU itself has fashioned a more elaborate trap for Brexiteer members of parliament. By rejecting out-of-hand British proposals for handling the Irish border, they can tip the harder-line Conservative MPs and ministers into opposing May’s attempts at compromise, such as a “customs partnership”. With no compromise agreed upon, Britain will increasingly be forced to the backstop position agreed to last December, that regulations in Northern Ireland have to be kept aligned with the Republic. And since we cannot accept an economic border down the Irish Sea, that means all of the UK aligned with the EU, even after we’ve left it.
The way to dodge this trap is to say: “We will bend over backwards to solve the Irish border question, even if we have to agree customs procedures on manufactured goods which are pretty close to being in a Customs Union, because otherwise the whole idea of Brexit is going to lose its point. And we too will not be used to break up our government.”
In other words, everyone now has to choose the lesser of evils. I have previously drawn attention to the attractions of a “partial Customs Union”, as set out in a paper from the Institute of Directors. Alternatives, such as the plans put forward by UK negotiators for charging different customs duties depending on the destination of goods crossing the border are more complex but also a serious attempt to find an answer. What is crucial, though, is that political chaos on the Tory side would be much worse than any of these ideas.
As a Conservative, I can accept Brexit without a customs union, or Brexit with a partial one, but I can’t accept that any Tory should make this issue unmanageable for a prime minister who has been doing her level best to guide the country through this very complicated process. Any real prospect of the Labour leadership coming to power would be worse for business, investment, confidence, jobs — not to mention the western alliance — than any aspect of leaving the EU. Britain can prosper in or out of the EU. It has no hope of doing so with a Marxist-led government.
So, as the debates of the next few weeks gather pace, sounding so technical over border procedures and customs, remember what is really going on. For Labour, this is the vehicle to bring down the government. For some in Brussels, it may very well be that too.
No Tory should give them the chance. They should see the traps, and, for the country’s sake, watch where they’re walking.
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London, 2018
William Hague is a former British foreign secretary.
