After Parliament had voted eight times on alternative paths forward for Brexit last night, Stephen Barclay, the Brexit secretary, got up and said the result vindicated the Prime Minister’s deal.
While none of the proposals got an overall majority in the House, the options for a customs union and a ‘People’s Vote’ came close, within thirty votes. The Prime Minister’s deal, by comparison, lost by 230 on its first outing, then 149.
Barclay illustrated the point I made at Prime Minister’s Questions earlier on Wednesday. I asked whether given the complete shambles we are in, parliament gridlocked, government paralysed, business stalled, jobs lost, households stockpiling, our global reputation trashed and the Prime Minister incapable of holding her cabinet together never mind the country, she would consider the possibility she was making a mistake.
Her answer demonstrated that, just like her Brexit secretary, her vision of the world is blinkered by political choices so entrenched that she no longer seems aware of them, or of their economic consequences.
Politically, the PM continues to be ideologically captive to an extremist minority in the Tory party that want a hard Brexit, a minority whose views have been utterly rejected by the vast majority of the country – by unions and employers, small businesses and big businesses, hospital workers and local authority leaders, by industry and agriculture.
That is the cancer at the core of the Brexit chaos. As the pro-Leave backbencher Steve Baker made so clear in a tearful speech, the people May seeks to satisfy will never be satisfied, and a majority of the UK public disagrees with them. So if May’s deal wins both she and the country will lose - the legacy of that victory will be social and political conflict and division for decades to come.
Add to that economic disaster. The extremist right in the Tory party are pursuing a path that is deeply economically destructive. As both the CBI and MakeUK, the manufacturing association, recently emphasised to me, just the possibility of severing economic ties with the EU is already damaging British industry by cutting it off from its supply chains and its markets in the EU. And the same is true for food – both the food we produce and the food we eat. Imagine what an actual hard Brexit would do. While the ‘Grand Wizards’ of Brexitland believe we can swap current links with Europe for future ones with Australia, or Asia or America, our manufacturers shake their head in disbelief as they contemplate the complex pan-European just-in-time zero stock supply chains on which so many well paid manufacturing jobs depend.
But there is hope. Last night’s votes also illustrated how the Prime Minister can resolve the Brexit dilemma in the name of national unity – by reaching out. With a customs union and a confirmatory vote commanding so much support, there is clearly common ground to agree an economically viable Brexit based on a customs union, and a socially viable Britain based on maintaining labour and environmental and consumer protection.
Boris Johnson and his Wizards will hate that of course, but unity does not mean unanimity. And it does not need to include people whose goal is destruction.
The ‘Grand Wizards’ should be sent out to play and leave the grownups to govern. Then let the people decide. As Margaret Beckett set out so brilliantly, given the depth of the divisions in our country today, even a cross-party deal will not be legitimate unless the people get a say.
So part two of what should be done is to put any deal to a vote of the people. Cutting the far right loose. Reaching across the table. Going back to the people. That’s how to move our country together and past Brexit.
Labour has a plan for executing Brexit. We are ready to negotiate with the PM. We cannot support May’s deal but the way we voted last night shows we are prepared to compromise in order to form a consensus that delivers for working people. We supported the Common Market 2.0 proposals, though it does not meet our standards. We are ready to work together for the good of the country.
Will the Prime Minister recognise she needs to reach out beyond the Grand Wizards who mean to destroy both the PM and the British economy?
Or will she continue making a terrible mistake?
Chi Onwurah is the Labour MP for Newcastle-upon-Tyne Central