Elites trying to delay or block Brexit are sitting on a volcano

There is an awful lot more wrong with Theresa May’s withdrawal deal than just the Irish backstop, though that is the most egregious imposition contained in the document. Imagining, for one moment, that the EU were to accede to Britain’s representations, reopen the agreement and withdraw the backstop, would that leave us with an acceptable deal, as the Westminster village’s idiots vociferously claim?

Of course not, except from the viewpoint of those Remainers – a majority within the House of Commons – who, having lost the referendum, are now seeking a default settlement of Brexit In Name Only. In the first place, again in the fantasy scenario whereby Brussels agreed to abolish the backstop, it would not be replaced by a void but by what has become coyly known as an “alternative arrangement”.

And we all know what that alternative arrangement would be: the backstop cosmetically camouflaged and awarded some ingenious new name. It is not unlikely that the EU Commission’s professional wordsmiths have already coined a soundbite title for the bogus substitute, calculated to appeal to the media’s appetite for such drivel terminology.

The ERG’s initial instinct was to vote against the Brady amendment; that instinct was sound and ERG members may rue the day they got into bed with 10 Downing Street. They were hoodwinked. They succumbed to the appeal of delivering, on the face of it, a vote that confronted Brussels with a demand for harder Brexit. One can understand, too, their desire to allow Theresa May the material for a spot of displacement activity between now and 14 February, to fill a vacuum that might otherwise have been occupied by more mischievous Remainer tinkering with the constitution in the House of Commons.

Still, it was flawed reasoning. Brexiteers comforted themselves with the clear declaration that they were in no way bound to vote for whatever result Theresa May might present to the House on 13 February. But the point was, last Tuesday they had the capability to vote down the Brady amendment; if, sometime before 29 March, some pseudo-Brexit, some Munich-style scrap of paper, is presented with much hype as a breakthrough and MPs desperate to prevent WTO Brexit (the only real Brexit) hail it as such, the ERG will not have the numbers to defeat such a fraud, made possible by their vote last Tuesday.

Try war-gaming the struggle against the EU in the coming eight weeks. At present Brussels is, predictably, insisting there can be no further negotiation of the withdrawal agreement. In theory, it is conceivable the EU could maintain that stance to the bitter end; but it would do so against the background screams of European business, notably German car manufacturers. Angela Merkel feels their pain (she has no alternative) and, in the endgame, it is Berlin, not Brussels, that will decide what happens.

Both the EU and Merkel, however, are wedded to what is now the tradition of pulling rabbits out of hats at five minutes to midnight, letting Britain “look into the abyss”. (In fact, polls show many Britons like what they see in the abyss.) If they intend to move, they are unlikely to do so in any substantive way before March. The intention would be to present Britain with a faux Brexit agreement so close to the 29 March deadline that MPs will grasp it with fervent relief and the public will not have time to study the small print. That scenario would apply if the EU (i.e. Germany) does not want an extension of Article 50 that would complicate the EU elections and cause continuing distraction.

A devil’s advocate might dismiss that scenario on the grounds that EU apparatchiks want to retain Britain within the EU as long as possible, in the hope that Brexit will wither on the vine, and if Britain asks for a short extension of Article 50, as both May and Corbyn would prefer, only a long delay may be on offer. Merkel, too, is not as powerful as she was and Emmanuel Macron, currently reduced to a ten-stone weakling politically, might want to flex some muscle by evicting Britain tout court on 29 March.

The instincts of Martin Selmayr, the new Brexit hatchet man, would probably be similar. The cynical calculation will be: how can we secure the outcome most damaging to Britain? Deserters must be punished “pour encourager les autres”. Britain, or rather Theresa May, is gearing up for the contest by sending in Oliver Robbins, the architect of the Heath-Robinson withdrawal agreement rejected by the House of Commons by 432 votes to 202.

In contrast, our top trade negotiator Crawford Falconer, on record as saying UK trade deals would be impossible under any kind of customs union, is being left at home, it seems. In the negotiating equivalent of a World Cup final our top striker is being left out while a man with a record of 432 own goals captains the team.

Probably the EU will maintain a posture of intransigence at least until 14 February in the hope that May will encounter more grief in Parliament and begin to dissolve her already almost imaginary “red lines”. Brussels wants more turbulence at Westminster while shaking its head sadly at the indiscipline of the Mother of Parliaments. Yet all this theoretical interplay involves only the backstop. If the backstop were completely eliminated (of which there is no chance) the May agreement would still be utterly unacceptable.

Its further defects, which she does not even propose to address, include Britain’s financial services left high and dry as regards access to EU markets, the potentially unending vassalage of the transition period, this country remaining under the jurisdiction of the European Court (one of the most bitterly resented issues during the referendum campaign), our fisheries (not included in the backstop arrangements) left at the mercy of Emmanuel Macron, no rights for UK citizens living in one EU country to move to another, and a potential crisis with Spain over Gibraltar at the end of the transition period.

Does anyone seriously believe that even one of the 17.4 million people who voted Leave was endorsing that dog’s dinner of crippling inhibitions on British sovereignty? Add to that the certainty that any supposed substitute for the backstop would still embody all its restrictions and the appalling May deal is a blatant formula for Brexit In Name Only.

Much of the public has had enough of this nonsense. Jeremy Hunt is signalling a likely deferment of Brexit beyond 29 March. Both the government and the House of Commons should understand that any deferment of Brexit would provoke unprecedented public anger. People have waited two and a half years for an outcome that could have been secured simply by repealing the European Communities Act and sending trade commissioners to Brussels.

The latest poll for Sky Data shows 60 per cent of the public (a higher percentage than the Leave vote) recognize that those trying to delay Brexit by extending Article 50 are actually attempting to prevent Brexit altogether. A WTO exit is also now the most popular option. In defying the result of the largest democratic exercise in British history the establishment is playing with fire.

For British democrats 29 March is a date set in stone. To fail to honour it would be to open Pandora’s box. Pseudo-negotiations in Brussels will not deceive the public; a faux Brexit will only initiate a decade of bitter struggle to free Britain. The elites are sitting on a volcano.