Compromises are often unsatisfactory to all
. A customs union, for example, would only reduce not eliminate border frictions . By making it impossible to offer third countries lower tariffs on their goods exports, it would also make it far harder to strike free-trade deals, though they could in theory be done for services alone.
The second reason is the looming deadline, now April 12th. Usually when compromise fails, the status quo prevails. For Brexit, however, the default is leaving without a deal. This week the cabinet secretary, Sir Mark Sedwill, spelt out the consequences for ministers in gory detail. Prices would jump, the economy tip into recession and the nation’s security be imperilled. That is why MPs this week sought to push through a law requiring Mrs May to seek another extension to the deadline.
She has in fact promised to do just that at the European Council in Brussels on April 10th. But it is not a given that EU leaders, whose unanimous approval is needed for an extension, will agree. Several are fed up with Mrs May’s indecision and with British MPs’ failure to agree upon anything. Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank, says the leaders are split, with France’s Emmanuel Macron inclined to be tougher on Mrs May than Germany’s Angela Merkel.
Mr Grant adds that EU leaders will insist that, if Britain is still a member after May 22nd, which is likely even if Mrs May and Mr Corbyn miraculously compromise in the next few days, it must take part in the European Parliament elections due on May 23rd-26th. Mrs May is keen not to do this so as to avoid explaining to voters why such an election is happening almost three years after the Brexit referendum.
However the next few days go, Mrs May once again faces torrid negotiations in Brussels next week. EU leaders are aware that she has lost control of her party and of Parliament. They know she has promised to quit as prime minister, and they are fearful of who might succeed her. Returning to that Commons protest, Aneurin Bevan famously warned the Labour Party that scrapping nuclear weapons would mean its foreign secretary walking naked into the conference chamber. Mrs May will not have to do that.
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