30/09/2018
In the run-up to the Tory conference, Tim Montgomerie is
putting the boot in personally to Mrs May, asserting that the prime minister "is the real source of the Tory party's woes".
Of course, the turmoil in the party has got nothing to do with the "disloyalty" of the "ultras". Montgomerie can simply wash his hand of the games they have been playing and dump everything on Mrs May. And to think that loyalty was once the defining characteristics of the Tories.
Mrs May, on the other hand, has
come out fighting. She is accusing the critics of her Chequers plan of "playing politics" with Britainâs future and undermining the national interest, demanding that they back her plan.
Unsurprisingly, she gets some support from
Matthew Parris. Writing under the headline: "Mayâs biggest threat is Tory lunatic fringe", he believes sympathy should get Mrs May past Birmingham, and better than many predict. Her doggedness wins her some admiration, and Johnson's "shin-kicking" has felt churlish.
According to Parris, leaver and remainer activists mostly agree on at least this: she's in unenviable difficulties which they don't think are her fault. Johnson's fringe speech will be over-hyped, and disappoint. As a speaker he's best when it doesn't matter, and the frame in Birmingham will be too heavy for his canvas. It's easier for a serious man to lighten his speech with a joke, than for a humourist to gain respect by lurching into gravitas.
On that basis, this intrepid columnist is confident that Mrs May will get through. She may even leave Birmingham a little stronger. But he thinks that she would be unwise to close down on the second referendum options, which could prove her only escape route. We'll see, he says.
Meanwhile, Booker is on the case (no link yet), remarking that there is one crucial figure which scarcely ever gets mentioned in our discussions of Brexit, although it should have been absolutely central to the debate all along.
This crucial figure can be found in the latest official statistics, which tell us that last year earned £279 billion from our exports to the EU, representing one pound in every eight of our national income, the annual GDP.
This is what is at stake as we lurch towards next March. Yet, whether we drop out of the EU without a deal or somehow manage to achieve one, in vital respects we are still no further forward than when negotiations began.
Says Booker, the fundamental reason why we have made such an utter shambles of Brexit is that our politicians have never really grasped the true nature of this strange entity we have been part of for 45 years.
The EU has only ever had one real agenda in all it does: to weld its member states ever more tightly together under an ever-growing thicket of laws which provide the legal authorisation for almost every kind of economic activity imaginable. As a country seeking to leave, we are only discovering how enmeshed we have become in that system when we are trying to leave.
That our government is belatedly waking up to this is evidenced by the series of "Technical Notices" it has recently been publishing, in answer to the Commission's âNotices to Stakeholdersâ. It is these which have been setting out the legal implications for months, covering one economic sector after another of our decision to drop completely out of that system.
In each case for the same reason, these make chilling reading. Take for instance, says Booker, the two documents on aviation published last week. Rather less fully than the Commission versions, these explain how every tiniest detail of what our aviation industry does, from making aircraft to the right of airliners to fly in and out of UK airspace, is now authorised, licensed and permitted by EU rules and international agreements to which we are party only by virtue of belonging to the EU.
Our government's view is that if we exactly transpose every last detail of all this into UK law, our airliners can continue to fly, our airports and factories can continue to function just as now. But again and again, like the tolling of a great bell, the notices then have to admit that the EU "takes a different view".
In fact what the Commission's versions repeatedly explain is that, from the moment we leave, these "permissions" will lapse and "cease to be valid" - no ifs or buts.
If we choose to leave the EEA we shut ourselves out from the entire legal system which allows so many of our most successful industries to continue exporting to the EU. We may replicate every detail of those EU laws but under the EU's own law it simply cannot recognise them.
As our government finally begins to admit, with or without a deal some "disruption", will be inevitable. And that is to put it mildly, The truth is that we have no real idea of the chaos that is coming down the track at us next year. It will not be pretty.
Nevertheless, we are getting some additional clues as to the fates awaiting us, with
the news that: "No-deal Brexit 'could halt production at UK Toyota plants'".
Several newspapers have carried this, after Marvin Cooke, the managing director at the firm's plant in Burnaston, near Derby, told the BBC that production could be disrupted for "hours, days, weeks â even months". Uncompromisingly, he says "My view is that if Britain crashes out of the EU at the end of March we will see production stops in our factory".
This is the third manufacturer in the UK to issue warnings. Cooke follows Jaguar Land Rover and BMW in an industry which employs over 186,000 people directly and more than 856,000 indirectly.
And, for once this is being taken seriously. Greg Clark, business, energy and industrial strategy secretary of state acknowledged that the warning was "concerning", admitting that Britain would lose its potential as one of the worldâs leaders in car innovation if there was no deal. "To see that slip through our fingers is something that we would regret for ever", he says.
No one can say, therefore, that they are unaware of the implications of a "no deal" Brexit â even if the likes of Rees-Mogg continue to claim that this is "Project Fear". But there is no-one in government addressing the realities. Chequers is still on the table and Mrs May is going to drive it through conference, even though it has been rejected by the EU.
Yet, if Mrs May is still on an alternative universe, Johnson is busy creating one of his own. He has gone to war with his own prime minister, according to
The Sunday Times,
arguing that the Tories can win the next election by ditching HS2 and committing to building a bridge to Ireland. And he has the nerve to brand Mrs May's Chequers plan "deranged".
Clearly, the man is going to do his best to derail the Tory conference and the media are doing their best to help him. But there is nothing quite so inane as the
Independent headline, which proclaims: "The Conservatives urgently need to talk to us about everything except Brexit".
This has Damian Green, the prime minister's former deputy, arguing that the next election will not be decided on Brexit, so his party needs to match Labour's attractive domestic programme. This must be the same intelligence that Johnson is working to, hence his comments on a bridge to Ireland.
Collectively, this must represent the final disconnect between politics and the real world. The
Observer is running a story claiming that Britainâs bill for Brexit hits £500m a week, and rising, based on a CER report that the UK's economy is already 2.5 percent smaller than it would have been if the country had voted to remain.
This is almost certainly an exaggeration (as one would expect from CER), but it serves to underline the potential impact of Brexit, and the fact that it is unfinished business. A botched Brexit â which currently looks the most likely outcome â could well drive the UK into deep recession and keep the Tories out of office for a generation.
Yet, unable to resolve the most pressing UK political issue of the Century, these lightweights are casting around for distractions â perhaps deliberate misdirection in the hope that it will hide their failure from the general public.
No less than three current cabinet ministers apparently agree that the Conservatives need to focus on subjects other than Brexit, suggesting that there is a lack of awareness that is probably terminal. If they fear Corbyn's domestic agenda, they need to think what is going to happen when the economy crashes in the immediate aftermath of Brexit. There will be nothing else on the agenda.
One thing though is of great significance. This is the last Conservative Party conference we will be able to watch while we are still in the EU. By the next conference, we will be out. And there will be very different dynamics at play.
Whether even Mrs May will still be prime minister is a matter for conjecture, and we may even be wondering whether there is still a Conservative Party large enough to have a conference.
