Why can’t some Brexiteers accept they won?

The significance of last week’s breakthrough in the talks between the EU and the UK is taking time to sink in, and some Brexiteers seem so discombobulated that they have not processed the implications.

What did it mean? Brexit is happening. The agreement of phase one was a disaster – a complete disaster – for the two groups of extremists, that is the hardline Brexiteers and those persisting with the fantasy of stopping Brexit. The UK is leaving the EU, with compromises. The EU wants a deal. No deal, or hard Brexit, is a possibility but minus an earthquake it has become remote.

To get progress Britain compromised. No, it did not cave, as the more deranged ultra-remainers claimed. Didn’t they claim to want compromise? Incidentally, why do Stop Brexiteers always give the EU the benefit of the doubt? A determination to paint Britain as useless and the EU masterful has become almost pathological now.

The phase one compromise was sensible. It means ECJ jurisdiction over EU citizens rights ends after eight years. The EU gets money, more than the UK wanted to pay, but less than the EU needed. The cash will be paid out slowly. Ireland was fudged.

Tremendous work was done by officials – led by Olly Robbins – to get the talks to move on. The UK’s civil servants take a lot of abuse from politicians and cannot answer back. The mandarins saved the government’s bacon on Brexit. Gongs all round.

But what the drama really revealed was the extent to which both sides in this negotiation want a deal. The UK adapted. The EU’s powerhouse Germany pulled back too. German banks, reliant on London, had an influence, officials believe. There was a sudden realisation that without progress it was heading for no deal and a change of UK Prime Minister. Complete collapse would have hit the UK rather hard, but the impact on the eurozone (which London runs and faciliates) would have been sub-optimal for the EU, to say the least. A deal was needed.

It is too early to say – as one Remainer peer says – that Brexit “is done” – but we know the outline of what happens next. The UK government is committed to leaving the Customs Union and the Single Market, after two years of transition. It and the EU seeks a free trade agreement.

After all the squabbling and chaos of the last 18 months these developments should delight Brexiteers, yet some of my more hardline friends seem unable to accept they have won. There is fury from the purists over those “rebel” MPs who defeated the government last night and wild talk of treason and deselections. Everyone, it seems, needs a long Christmas holiday.

The government made a terrible mess of handling Parliament’s concerns. The blame for the narrow defeat – on the question of whether MPs will get a vote on the “final” deal – will be landed on the Tory chief whip, which is actually slightly unfair when the decision to make this a test of wills was taken elsewhere in the chaotic high command.

The call for a meaningful vote before Brexit is largely meaningless, anyway. If it came to a no deal vote or a dreadful deal the government would be collapsing by that point anyway and Britain would be in election mode.

Oddly, the hardline Brexiteers want the government to have the right to ram through a hard Brexit if it comes to it, ignoring parliament. The rebels are right that this would be an abuse of executive power and unappealing to fair-minded voters too.

Anyway, Brexiteers should be pleased that parliament is establishing its rights to scrutinise and approve or decline agreements and treaties. This will come in handy if a future government tries to negotiate a trade deal with other countries or arrangement that parliament doesn’t like.

Fighting a war for parliamentary sovereignty and then getting annoyed when it is reasserted is a bad look.

‎Beyond today’s infighting, the core of the argument on phase two is going to be about the extent of “regulatory alignment.” What does the UK agree to align with in terms of EU rules? ‎Canada and the US align on NAFTA. Canada and the EU are going to align. Canada is still a self-governing, independent country.

Hardliners may balk at considering compromises, but have they considered how it will play out in front of the public? Is there a large market for dying in a ditch on “unaligning” the successful UK car industry from EU standards‎ and rules for example? Really? Do more than Nigel Farage and 500 hardliners think that is a good idea?

A great deal of boring but important technical detail will have to be resolved. Agriculture will be difficult. On financial services, maintaining alignment on eurozone clearance and settlement will ‎suits both sides. Finance is about hubs and funding. Much of the eurozone bank wholesale activity is here, in the largest capital market.

There are other rules the City may be keen to diverge on. There will be a range of difficult compromises and choices to be made.

The broad choice is between an FTA (modelled on Canada, plus more financial services, data and security) or a Norway-style arrangement, which looks like a compromise too far with too little support in the cabinet and too much involved that would outrage voters in leave areas. Anyway, Norway is not, as Rupert Harrison, George Osborne’s former chief of staff, wisely says, a suitable model for the world’s fifth or sixth largest economy, the UK.

It might, might, have been different, if leading Remainers had regrouped quickly last year around accepting Britain is leaving and campaigning for a varient of Norway. Instead they wrote books with titles like “Stop Brexit” and talked openly of leavers being stupid and at death’s door.

Partly as a consequence, a Norway set-up is now seen as a Trojan horse for getting Britain back into the EU. Even us more moderate Brexiteers are very wary of that.

Brexiteer suspicion of a sell out is valid, obviously. But it is daft to take it too far when the Brexit crowd have won most of what they, we, wanted.‎ Shouldn’t the priority now be building bridges and mastering the detail of what is to come? Could it catch on?