Last week I was reading an assessment of the likelihood of various possible Brexit outcomes by Oxford Economics in David Smith's Sunday Times column. I smelt a bit of a rat as the probabilities summed to more than 100% (I know probabilities sum to one but bear with me). Smith clarified this week that Oxford Economics were looking at two events: withdrawal and the ultimate deal. On withdrawal they were predicting a 15% chance of a cliff-edge Brexit with the balance split between agreement to move on to the next phase of negotiations and the article 50 timescale being extended. On the ultimate deal it's just over 30% for each of BRINO (Brexit In Name Only, i.e. maintaining our trading relationship as it is now) and the "hard Brexit" of trading on WTO rules, with 24% for a free trade agreement and 15% for staying in the EU after all. So I stick with my first take on this assessment, that none of the options were being assigned a particularly high probability and no-one has much of a clue what is likely to happen. One might say, with extra time and penalties looming, the result is wide open. Wow.
My favourite blogger Wolfgang Munchau, as usual, has much to say on all of this. He commented on - well rubbished actually - an article by George Eaton in the New Statesman which tried to explain why Remainers think the EU would be keen on us having a second referendum to overturn the first. After all, that would be entirely in the character of previous EU behaviour when countries rejected "more Europe" in referenda and were invited to try again. Munchau patiently explains that there cannot practically be a referendum on any eventual deal because that deal would be seen not just by the UK as a deal but by the EU also. He predicts the EU would portray it as a take it or leave it choice. So the idea it could be rejected by Parliament on the basis that a better or different deal could be obtained is plain daft. It will be that deal or no deal.
He also thinks that dynamic means that the UK government would not ask for the article 50 deadline to be extended, since that would complicate things: Theresa May can't keep the choice "deal or no deal" if the timescale is extended.
He also thinks through the no deal scenario. He says the "meaningful vote" vote in the Commons a few weeks ago means that Parliament has been deprived of its only real chance of taking matters into its own hands. I'm not completely sure about that actually. I thought it was left that it was up to the Speaker to decide whether the government's motion was written in such a way as to be amendable or not. Maybe they will try to get the Speaker's agreement in advance that the draft wording is not amendable. But Bercow is nothing if not filled with a sense of his own power and importance. So who knows how he will react? Mischievously I can't help thinking about the prospect of Gina Miller taking court action to overturn the Speaker's verdict because he has over-reached his powers in allowing amendments to be voted on. As if! I suspect Gina's sense of what is legal is closely correlated to what would keep us in the EU.
Be that as it may, taking Munchau's argument, Parliament's only option if it doesn't like deal or no deal would be a vote of no confidence to try to force an election. Munchau thinks the evidence shows the votes would not be there to achieve that. But if they were and Labour won an election before late March it could ask the EU to extend the timescale. He thinks the EU would only do that for a plain vanilla customs union/EEA deal or a plain vanilla FTA with a customs border in the Irish Sea or a repeal of Article 50 after a second referendum. This sequence would require: failure to reach a deal, majority for a vote of no confidence, a Labour victory with a coalition of pro-remain parties and a total U-turn on Brexit by Jeremy Corbyn. Munchau finds this sequence incredible and says it would collapse at the first or second step. Hmm. I am not quite so sanguine: the Bolsheviks, er I mean Labour, will do anything to win power.
In recent days Munchau has noted a shift in the EU's position, which he says is causing panic in the UK Remain camp at the prospect that there will be a deal. He sees a wider recognition in Brussels than before that a hard Brexit would have severely negative implications for the EU as well, and especially for Ireland which would be under a legal obligation to erect a customs border (a point I've been making for months). Germany and other exporting countries have no interest in a tariff border for their largest export market. The UK also continues to be seen as an important and useful ally to Germany. He also notes that Michel Barnier and his UK counterparts are edging towards an agreement on financial services, after the UK dropped its previous insistence of an independent arbiter, a development I find positive, though I worry that the EU will always interpret its rules in the way that suits itself at the time. After all, you would, wouldn't you? There are still many open issues but, he says "we are now in a much more normal phase of negotiations". Meanwhile Theresa May "steers a course towards a gradual softening in the position - a course we believe will ultimately prevail. The distance between her white paper and the EU’s preferred option of a customs union is still formidable, but not unbridgeable."
Plausible predictions I accept, but when the PM feels it necessary to go to woo the French president to her point of view - the very politician who has been pushing Germany to agree to "more Europe" in terms of financial control and the one who perhaps has the most to gain from Britain's exit - then I do wonder if we are clutching at straws.
However, a prediction by Alex Barker in the FT has the ring of an odds on favourite: the EU is willing to fudge the political declaration to accompany the withdrawal treaty setting out the future relationship. Munchau says this is a development he expected all along - after all the EU will never allow a negotiation to fail if a fudge is available. Naturally, a fudge is not going to solve the problem and stores up trouble for the future. But it gets May past the Brexit date, and it removes the options of a no-deal Brexit and a Brexit reversal. And it focuses the political debate in the UK on the future relationship itself, which would be valuable in its own right.
The FT article cites a senior EU diplomat closely involved in the Brexit talks, to the effect that the priority for the EU is to get the deal done and approved in the House of Commons. The EU would not sacrifice its principles, including the safeguards for Northern Ireland, but would do anything in its powers to get a deal passed. The EU remains hostile to the specific customs proposals set out in the white paper, but the political declaration may include language to explore unprecedented models of future co-operation.
Given the uncomfortable reality that there is no majority for any particular Brexit in the Commons (accurately reflecting the public I guess) maybe that is the only way the "deal" can be got through the Commons - if it is so vague that it can't be rejected. An agreement to agree is meaningless but hard to oppose.However, it would get us out even if all the detail still needed to be resolved. Since I don't believe that we should stay - there was no majority for that either - I might find it hard to oppose such a non-deal myself, though I am nervous that it feels like a slippery slope to pit of permanent fudge, out but not "free". But, given all the water that has passed under the bridge, I cannot imagine there would be a majority for staying under the terms we'd be given. Oh, you Remainers aren't so naive to think that we could just go back to as we were are you? Of course the EU would exact a price - no rebates, no opt outs - or some other advantage, wouldn't they? As sure as Martin Selmayr is Darth Vader! Though I accept for many Remainers that would be perfect as they've always wanted us to be more at the heart of Europe, signed up for everything, even the euro. Happy to be on the hook for bailing out Greece and Italy, whatever, bring it on.
The one choice that I cannot see being available is the status quo ante. It's more Europe or a lot less.
I know which I want - as I've said before, I'm out, for medical reasons - I'm sick of them. (I accept there is a counter argument, given that it will be obvious that I do not trust the Germans or, particularly, the French: that you should keep your friends close and your enemies closer....)
But I will reiterate an earlier prediction, which doesn't need a crystal ball. The rights and wrongs of whatever course of action emerges will be debated for the rest of my lifetime. Campaigns to rejoin. Campaigns to modify the deal, if there is one. Campaigns that we should have been more in, or more out. Think we can stop banging our head against this wall come 29 March? Think again. There are too many people who just won't leave it alone.
What Oxford Economics didn't go on to assess was the probability of a Corbyn government. I'll tell you what I think about that - my head hurts.
Still, the appetising test series against India has started. And the fascinating first test is still right in the balance. Oh and the football season will soon be here. Ah, but Everton - my head hurts.....
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