Get it done! Move on! The government expects sheer Brexit fatigue to carry it over the line in this war of attrition. Disingenuous and dishonest, it blames everyone but itself for this purgatory. The other side must back down, but it won’t give way on a single amendment in this week of votes.
The prime minister could get a deal agreed instantly, but instead of compromise on customs union or referendum, he presses on for the hardest of Brexits, even more brutally damaging than Theresa May’s oft-rejected deal. Dithering Labour MPs toying with “getting it done” may hold the balance. Here’s the question: why would anyone who rejected May’s lesser evil as too hard vote for Boris Johnson’s?
Why fold now, when the chancellor dare not give the Treasury’s estimate of this deal’s economic impact? Assume it must mirror King’s College London predictions of up to a 7% loss of expected GDP over the next decade. It casts Britain out of the customs union, creating borders almost as hard – and with ports almost as blocked – as under a no-deal exit. But it keeps Northern Ireland in the customs union, splitting it off from the rest of the UK, fraying the bonds with hard-bordered Britain. Perversely, Johnson powers up separatists by denying Scotland’s similar wish to stay in the customs union. Any Labour MPs schmoozed by Johnson’s bogus reassurances will surely be alarmed at how he has shifted EU alignment on climate, food and employment standards – from legally binding to mere vague intent.
Any Labour MPs or Tory remainer/soft Brexiteers who rejected May’s deal need to say which of these magic new ingredients could possibly sway them now. The European Research Group folds because it gets most of its demands. But I find it hard to believe that any Labour MPs, beyond the usual few mavericks, will slide into the lobby to vote this week with the Johnsonites. On Saturday there were just six – five of whom are not standing again, plus Caroline Flint who takes over the Kate Hoey rank-outsider role on the furthest backbench. How many want to join her in that isolated slot?
At a rally in Liverpool on Saturday night, Jeremy Corbyn said: “Those who voted leave or remain have all got a place in the Labour party.” It’s unclear if that was a blanket pardon to his own MPs, but he would be right not to expel them. (And in that spirit, he should suspend destructive trigger ballots currently wasting the energies of Labour MPs who should be out canvassing, not wooing their own members.) Expulsions made Johnson look weak and petulant when he threw out dissidents far more distinguished than he. Party allegiances are deep and broad: no need to purge dissenters even on this most epoch-shaping issue.
My guess is that most potential Labour rebels will stop at the brink. Ahead lies the danger that win, lose or withdraw the bill due to obnoxious amendments, the outcome will be win-win for Johnson. Either way, he can bounce into an imminent election triumphant at passing his deal, or he can blast parliament and opposition to hell and damnation as blockers of the people’s will.
Let’s suppose he wins a majority to wreak his will on the country for five unconscionable years. Imagine he deregulates to meet US, Indian and Chinese standards and yet fails to secure significant new trade. The car industry will be gone within a decade, new models moved abroad; food and fish processing ditto. The economy sinks below countries once our equals, while the brain-drain steals our children and foreign talent. The state shrinks despite a few crowd-pleasers to stop the most visible services collapsing. The climate worsens and Britain lags behind EU initiatives.
Labour MPs who help Johnson to victory, by backing his Brexit to satisfy their constituents, will find themselves unforgiven even if not expelled. Each Johnson act that passes, each budget turn of the screw, will belong to them in perpetuity, no way back.
Flint rightly says Labour MPs who take that course will be “brave”. If they were, like Hoey, actual Brexit believers, that might be so. But those such as Flint, who think democracy commands that they must obey their leave constituents’ wishes, look a bit less brave than other leave-constituency MPs such as Sunderland South’s Bridget Phillipson, Redcar’s Anna Turley or Wakefield’s Mary Creagh, who vote against leaving the EU while warning their leave voters of Brexit harm.
What if constituents backed the home secretary, Priti Patel, in some future restoration of capital punishment, say, or banishment of foreigners, would Flint-minded Labour MPs obey their orders in the mistaken idea that democracy demands they follow not lead their voters?
Come the hour, as they inspect the withdrawal agreement bill’s details, I doubt many Labour MPs will vote for Johnson’s enthronement. Instead, across the House, enough MPs may vote to stay in the customs union with a public vote to confirm it.
This hard-as-nails Brexit has just one intent: to knock out Nigel Farage, Johnson’s most feared opponent, in a bare-knuckle fight. No chance, as Farage will out-Brexit him every time: “Brexit in name only”, “no vote, no voice, no veto” and “clean break is the only way” is his TV studio challenge. This man, who has seven times failed to be elected MP, has nonetheless shaped every step of the country’s disastrous path out of Europe.
Labour’s best chance of stopping a Johnson election victory depends on this old monster scything away a heap of Tory leave votes: Brexit certainly makes odd bedfellows. But I doubt many Labour MPs will make their bed with Johnson in this week’s votes.
• Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
