Numbers game: Boris may yet pull off a deal

It looks to me as though the Prime Minister has been mugging up on the philosophy of the former US President with whom he shares a surname. It was Lyndon Johnson who said that the first rule of politics is to learn to count. While it’s still early days, there are strong signs that Johnson’s new proposal is pulling MPs in one by one from the Brexit extremities and onto the centre ground.

As we know from Theresa May’s failure three times to get her Withdrawal Agreement through the Commons, Brexit is ultimately a numbers game. The DUP’s Arlene Foster has given the thumbs-up to Johnson’s plan, which allows Northern Ireland to leave the EU’s customs union along with the rest of the UK but remain signed up to the bloc’s single market rules indefinitely. That’s 10 votes.

Foster has given her backing to the Prime Minister’s proposals because they get rid of the dreaded backstop and because they are also aimed at respecting the Good Friday Agreement that ended the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

On the outer ring of the eurosceptics, Steve Baker, of the hardline ERG and a member of the group which voted against May’s Withdrawal Agreement, has also praised the deal as more positive. Baker added that while there are still problems there is at least an FTA destination. That sounds promising too. If the ERG can be won over, then most of the 62 MPs within this eurosceptic grouping, ranging from the hard-core to the Brexit-lite crowd, could be brought alongside.

More pertinently, the number of backbench “moderate” Tory MPs and Labour MPs who are giving their tentative backing to the proposals is also growing.

Three Labour MPs – Melanie Onn, Gareth Snell and Ruth Smeeth – who represent Labour areas which voted to leave, have indicated they could go along with the plan, mainly on the grounds that it’s better than no deal. So far their stance is more sotte voce, but Labour’s Stephen Kinnock, and Caroline Flint, have also made warmer noises about the proposal.

Kinnock and Flint are an important influence among the more moderate Labour MPs because they lead the cross-party “MPs for a Deal” group who want a compromise, which could amount to up to 50 votes.

Indeed, Kinnock has been a strong advocate of an adapted May-style WA to include changes that had been negotiated by Labour before cross-party talks broke down earlier this year. He was successful in requiring the deal to be brought to a further vote, following the passage of a bill aimed at stopping a no deal Brexit on 31 October.

Kinnock’s position has always been for a Common Market 2.0 Norway-style option.

Intriguingly, the possibility of the UK choosing to stay in the European Economic Area – at least during the transition – was raised by George Yarrow, professor of regulatory law at the University of Oxford, and long-time proponent of the EEA/Efta option.

Yarrow, Oxford professor of regulatory law, suggests that the new proposals which allow Northern Ireland to stay in the single market – if it wants – could even “be a first prototype for the UK as a whole.”

But can Johnson get the numbers to get past go in the Commons? He knows that he will need more than the five Labour MPs who voted for May’s WA last time if there are fewer than six Tory Brexit MPs who do not support him. The five Labour MPs were Flint, Rosie Cooper, Jim Fitzpatrick, Kevin Barron and John Mann and they are unlikely to have changed their mind.

That’s why Johnson, and other Cabinet ministers, have been holding behind the scenes talks with Labour MPs over the last few days to find ways of securing agreement and why more positive voices are emerging from the woodwork so quickly.

As Damian Green, May’s former deputy, said this week, it would be hard to believe MPs will reject a deal if Johnson manages to secure one. What about the hard-core Tory Remainer tribe or indeed, the Norway-style moderates? What do they do now? They appear to moving back too. Tory MPs like Nick Boles, who resigned the whip and crossed the floor, has said he will back Johnson in the Commons.

It’s not yet clear whether any of the 21 Tory MPs, including former Chancellor Philip Hammond, Sir Nicholas Soames and Dominic Grieve, who had the whip taken from them, will give their backing. No doubt work is going on behind the scenes with them to bring them back out of the cold. But you could easily get the numbers up to around 300-310 Tory and former Tory votes – plus the DUP and Labour rebels.

Johnson’s plan has not been shot down yet by Brussels. As expected, Ireland’s Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, says parts of the plan are unworkable while the EU’s Brexit Steering Group has said the same. But they would say that now.

If the EU moves slightly, there may well be the numbers at Westminster to pass a deal.

More noticeably, neither Jean-Claude Juncker nor Michel Barnier have dismissed the plans out of hand. Nor have there been any put-downs from Berlin or Paris.

It’s more likely that the EU’s politicians and officials are measuring the mood in Westminster – and the numbers – to see whether Johnson has any hope on earth in getting such a plan through.

Alternatively, Brussels has no interest in further negotiations to reach a compromise deal, preferring to wait until the PM is forced into an extension and a second referendum. But that would be too cynical, surely?