The Observer view on
triggering article 50
Observer editorial
As Britain hurtles
towards the precipice, truth and democracy are in short supply
Sunday 26 March 2017
00.05 GMT
Like sheep, the
British people, regardless of whether they support Brexit, are being
herded off a cliff, duped and misled by the most irresponsible, least
trustworthy government in living memory. The moment when article 50
is triggered, signalling Britain’s irreversible decision to quit
the EU, approaches inexorably. This week, on Black Wednesday, the UK
will throw into jeopardy the achievements of 60 years of unparalleled
European peace, security and prosperity from which it has greatly
benefited. And for what?
The ultra-hard Tory
Brexit break with Europe that is now seen as the most likely outcome
when the two-year negotiation concludes is the peacetime equivalent
of the ignominious retreat from Dunkirk. It is a national catastrophe
by any measure. It is a historic error. And Theresa May, figuratively
waving the cross of St George atop the white cliffs of Dover like a
tone-deaf parody of Vera Lynn, will be remembered as the principal
author of the debacle. This is not liberation, as Ukip argues, nor
even a fresh start. It is a reckless, foolhardy leap into the unknown
and the prelude, perhaps, to what the existentialist writer Albert
Camus described in La chute – a fall from grace, in every
conceivable sense.
It did not have to
be this way. Like others who favoured Remain, we have reiterated, ad
nauseam, our acceptance of the referendum result. But whether you
were for or against, what confronts us all now is drastically
different from what was on the table last June. The hard Tory Brexit
in prospect represents an epic act of self-harm. A more enlightened
Conservative prime minister, better attuned to the “one nation”
tradition of the party of Disraeli and Macmillan, less in thrall to
Little Englanders, and less intimidated by the peculiarly vicious and
Manichaean worldview of the Daily Mail, would have taken a more
consensual approach. Yet despite her promises when she became prime
minister, Theresa May has failed to heal the divisions caused by
Brexit.
Far from reuniting a
fractured kingdom, she has divided it further, perhaps fatally, as
the SNP’s unsettling decision last week to push for a second
Scottish independence referendum implies. As Lord Heseltine has
suggested, a more imaginative, braver and more consistent leader
could have used the referendum result to propel an immediate
negotiation with the EU on much-needed reforms. If, at the end of
that process, Britain’s demands remained unmet, the divorce could
have proceeded or, if a deal were agreed, been put to a second vote.
Instead, May, more sheep than shepherd, has feebly allowed herself to
be driven ever further towards an extreme, inflexible,
take-it-or-leave-it stance for which she has neither mandate nor
credible grounds.
The main reason that
May and her ministers now say that no deal would be better than a bad
deal is that even the most blinkered Brexiters have belatedly
realised what an impossible position they have placed the country in.
They simply cannot deliver what they promised. Nor will an affronted,
alienated Brussels help them do so. Rejigged single market access?
Forget it. A bespoke customs union? Not a chance. A free trade deal
within two years? In your dreams. It has become crystal clear that
none of this is possible while ministers continue to reject freedom
of movement and other basic EU principles, including European court
of justice jurisdiction. On this, the other 27 countries are united.
So now the hard Brexiters say, with astonishingly cynical mendacity,
that Britain would be better off going it alone. This approach plays
fast and loose with ordinary people’s livelihoods. Yet still, with
jingoistic horns and trumpets drowning out the roar of the deep, the
stampede towards the cliff’s edge gathers pace.
Every day produces
more evidence that this hard Tory Brexit is a disaster in the making.
Carmakers and other export manufacturers, fearing swingeing tariffs,
are demanding special protections and exemptions or else they leave.
Professional bodies, ranging from lawyers to economists, warn of
endlessly damaging business consequences. The NHS faces the loss of
tens of thousands of qualified doctors and nurses it has no prospect
of replacing. Care homes are in a similar plight. Banks, financial
institutions and airlines face unavoidable decisions about moving
jobs and operations to mainland Europe.
Environmentalists
rightly fear the cleaner rivers and cleaner air ensured by EU
regulations (red tape to the Europhobes) may soon become a thing of
the past. British citizens living and working in Europe fear the
chaos that would surely follow all-out rupture; likewise EU citizens
living here. Britain’s farmers, like its academics, surely realise
by now, if they did not before, that they cannot trust this
government to replicate the research funding, subsidies and
employment freedoms that EU membership currently bestows. The average
British family is now hemmed in by multiple, authoritative
predictions of stagnant or falling wages, higher food and fuel
prices, an ongoing sterling devaluation, collapsing social care and
public services and increased, regressive indirect taxation. Be you a
Remainer or a Leaver, you would have to be particularly obtuse not to
see that May’s hard Tory Brexit will cost this country and its
families more than it can conceivably afford.
The prospective
political, diplomatic and reputational cost is every bit as daunting.
Take the damage to Britain’s democracy. Last week, parliament was
at its best, uniting in defiance of terrorism. The week before, it
was at its worst, agreeing to deny itself a meaningful vote on any
final deal. The government argued that to do otherwise would tie its
hands. This is baloney. David Davis, Liam Fox, Boris Johnson and the
other Brexit blowhards know they have no chance of achieving their
stated aims, such as a £350m weekly NHS payback. So they
pre-emptively reject parliamentary scrutiny, dismiss any criticism as
unpatriotic and hope, like the cheap chancers they are, that they
will get away with it. They’ve peddled a fake Brexit, full of false
promises. The reality is beginning to dawn.
Unconscionably, they
and their outliers in the hard Brexit media have attempted to stifle
debate and question those who demand proper scrutiny of the most
significant political and economic challenge to Britain in decades.
They have helped foster a corrosive, mean-spirited, angry and
divisive atmosphere that May and her lieutenants are too weak to
challenge. Into this swill comes Leave financier-in-chief, Arron
Banks, who last week announced he was setting up a “Patriotic
Alliance” to attempt to unseat 100 Remain-supporting MPs. The Daily
Mail, Katie Hopkins, Arron Banks, Nigel Farage, Paul Nuttall – meet
Britain’s new patriots. Except they’re not, because divisiveness
and intolerance are not the values of patriots.
There is a criticism
of one’s country that is born of hate and a criticism born of love.
And they are materially different. One wishes to divide us, the other
attempts to bind, cohere and support. It fell last week to Michel
Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, to throw a cold bucket of
reality over the ultra-hard Brexiters’ fantasies. The effect was
chilling. Barnier made clear May’s “no deal” option was no
option at all. He warned of queues of lorries at Dover, chaos for
ordinary citizens and custom controls on trade from day one of the
UK’s withdrawal. Barnier also made plain the EU would not even
begin to talk about a post-Brexit trade deal until Britain agrees to
cough up the estimated £50bn Brussels says it owes in prior
commitments. The figure is disputed. But the principle is not.
Britain faces a hugely costly settling of accounts, whatever parti
pris barristers may advise. For good measure, Barnier insisted the
Irish border conundrum and citizens’ rights must be resolved before
other Brexit matters can be discussed.
Barnier says the EU
wants a deal. And it would be reckless indeed for EU leaders to
ignore the factors that produced the Brexit vote, many of which can
be observed across the union. The EU itself is becoming uncomfortably
aware that as well as a need to show flexibility towards the UK, it
also has to demonstrate to its own citizens an awareness of its
democratic and policy deficiencies if it is to rekindle the support
that has seen it develop since its origins in the Treaty of Rome 60
years ago.
But Barnier’s
stance, if unchanged, presages a negotiations humiliation for the
government. Yet more threatening for the ultra-hard Brexit brigade
and the lie factories of Fleet Street was Barnier’s vow to spell
out what leaving the EU really entails for the British people. “We
need to tell the truth and we will tell the truth to our citizens
about what Brexit means,” Barnier said, his point being that, until
now, here and elsewhere, such truths have been deliberately
concealed, ignored or distorted. How galling, and how ironic, that
the country, the “mother of parliaments” that boastfully styles
itself the home of modern representative governance, should need a
lesson in open democracy. But needed it is. Truth and common sense
are in short supply as Britain charges towards the precipice.
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