Theresa May’s Brexit stance has taken on a more pragmatic complexion

Had Ms May stuck to the unrealistic lines and stubborn tone she struck at Lancaster House and, to a lesser extent, in Florence, then her critics on every wing would have rightly concluded she was incapable of taking matters forward at all

Theresa May speaking at Mansion house today. (Getty)

There was a moment in Theresa May’s (latest) keynote speech on Brexit when she came within a couple of syllables of telling the British public the truest of truths about Brexit. For those listeners without the benefit of the pre-released text in front of them, the phrase that began “We are leaving the single market, life is going to be diff-“ should have, of course, ended with “-icult”, rather than “-erent”. Perhaps a late edit. She added that she wanted to state some “hard facts” about leaving the European Union, though they never quite materialised through the bureaucratese that seized most of her rhetoric.

This was a far more detailed contribution to the debate than anything she has said in the past, and represented the most downbeat assessment of Brexit prospects since Ms May was, albeit half-heartedly, a member of the Remain campaign during the 2016 referendum campaign. As such, it suited Ms May’s brisk, sangfroid demeanour, rather than trying to sound enthusiastic about the “exciting opportunities” represented by Brexit, and most of the usual guff about “a global Britain” was left out.

We were informed, as if we’d not worked it out already, that leaving the single market and the customs union will mean less easy access to markets. There was none of David Davis’s breezy promises of the “same access” as we enjoy now. There were no Boris-style sub-Churchillian rallying cries. It’s almost as if the grind of the EU negotiations since she became Prime Minister, and indeed her political misfortunes since then, have eroded whatever delusions she may have adopted about her future and that of the country she leads.

She had some good debating lines. Her observation that every free trade agreement represents an exercise in “cherrypicking” was a clever one. Perhaps taking the hint from the speech Sir John Major made earlier, she played down her “red lines”, and acknowledged that both sides will have to compromise. She was clear about the UK leaving the customs union and single market, but there is less of the “no, no, no” in her attitude nowadays. Subconsciously or not, she may have decided to stop channelling Margaret Thatcher into her performances and start channelling Mr Major. If so, that is all to the good.

In highlighting what the UK would like from Euratom; the European Medicines Agency (as it vacates London); the European banking regulators; in broadcasting; on fisheries; and in aviation, among others, she at least broached subjects any one of which would take a year of determined political and bureaucratic effort to renegotiate and settle. As it is we have only that time to do all of them and much more. That is one reality that has not been properly faced up to – that we have probably run out of time already.

Ms May also had another stab at the conundrum of how Britain can be outside the EU customs union, but also negotiate its own international trade deals and avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland. She stressed continually, apparently sincerely and as passionately as her temperament would allow, that there will be no hard border in Ireland come what may. She has given her word on that, and she plainly intends to keep it. Or try to. The problem is that it is not in fact Michel Barnier or Leo Varadkar she is trying to negotiate with on the customs union/Irish border question, but the rules of logic themselves, and they do not usually bend to political pressure or goodwill.

So Ms May has started being creative. She suggested that the UK could administer the EU’s external tariffs and economic border on the EU’s behalf for goods that were merely transiting across UK territory (with a reciprocal arrangement in the other direction, naturally). She made the most of the reality of rural life in Ulster by proposing that “micro” traders be ignored for the purposes of customs. After all, no one (except the comedy unit of the BBC in Northern Ireland) wishes to see some sort of cuddly “soft border patrol” intervening gently at every plank laid across some stream in the lush pastures of Ireland.

Ms May repeated her touching faith in technological and software solutions to managing customs, but without that much more convincing detail. It was progress, however, and she stated that the UK’s commitment to peace in Ireland post-Brexit wasn’t Ireland’s or the EU’s problem, but the UK’s, as the UK had created the headache by voting for Brexit. It was a fair minded admission that should be welcomed in Brussels and Dublin.

There were also hints about further financial payments, to participate in EU agencies, and a hard-nosed recognition that the rulings of the European Court will affect Britain, even when its jurisdiction in the UK is brought to close. There were, more predictably, requests to cherrypick aspects of the single market that suit the UK, but at least they are now specific and real. Angela Merkel, who publicly announced recently that she was “curious” as to what Britain wished for, has been given her wish. Things are taking on a more practical complexion.

The main problem with the UK’s attitude to the single market is summed up in the favoured phrase of the moment, “managed divergence”. It might be simple for the May administration to agree to copy EU rules on, say, workers’ rights, and thus fulfil that part of a negotiation about single market access – how can that agreement bind the British parliament for all time? What happens when the EU or the UK wishes to vary its labour laws? What then? That would seem to be against Ms May’s principle that the new EU-UK relationship be sustainable and not subject to constant renegotiation and argument. At least the issue is out in the open now, though.

This speech, then, could have been so much worse, for her personally and for the country. Had Ms May stuck to the unrealistic lines and stubborn tone she struck at Lancaster House and, to a lesser extent, in Florence, then her critics on every wing would have rightly concluded she was incapable of taking matters forward at all. She is proceeding by consensus and forcing decisions left undone for too long. She wisely dipped all of her Cabinet colleagues’ hands in blood at their Chequers away day and at the Thursday Cabinet meeting where each was invited to endorse her speech. Maybe she is at her best in a corner. We should hope so.

As it stands, Ms May is in a better position to fulfil the bathetic promise she made to her party’s managers after the disastrous snap election last year lost her Commons majority – words to the effect that she had got the country into this mess, but would also get it out of it. There’s a long way to go, though, and the EU retains the advantages of time, sheer size as a bargaining unit, and unity. As she urges, though without any discernible sense of irony or shame on her part after almost two years of British inertia, the time really has come for all concerned to “get on with it”.