Why Theresa May is trying to teach a horse to talk

[andrewducker]

At the moment, the UK has no preferred end-state for its relationship with Europe. This despite it being less than a year until Brexit.

This is because:
1) It takes 15% of Conservative MPs to trigger a leadership election, and there are that many of them who want a hard Brexit.
2) She has a majority of 7 (including the DUP, and bearing in mind that Sinn Féin don't vote), and there are more than 7 Conservative MPs who will vote against a hard Brexit. And quite possibly bring the government down over it.

The whole reason for the snap election last year was that she was paralysed by this situation (with a majority of 10), and with an opposition viewed as unelectable she thought that she could get some extra MPs so that she wouldn't be dependent on nearly every single Conservative MP to pass Brexit. It leaving her worse off is, frankly, hilarious, even if I did wish I was watching it from an independent Scotland rather than being stuck on the inside.

This has led to the ridiculous situation of the cabinet fighting between each other over two different Brexit approaches, neither of which is even slightly acceptable to the other, and both of which are unacceptable to Europe. (See here for why).

Frankly, I don't see a way out of this for her. She can't pass a hard Brexit, she can't pass a soft Brexit. The only thing she can do is keep kicking the can in the hope that the horse can be taught to talk.

Comments

[jack]

Oh god. Yes, that's exactly it. It was always obvious to me that all of the available options were unpalatable to her party so the government needed to just keep moving forward without committing themselves, but I didn't manage to put it so precisely, nor so clearly.

I'm not surprised that she accepted the poisoned chalice -- she probably didn't have a better chance to be Prime Minister, and it's common amongst politicians to find it impossible to resist the opportunity, even if she can only SUCCEED as Prime Minister by some tremendous stroke of luck.

[jack]

Ah! And a more detailed retelling of the teaching-a-horse-to-talk story. I was familiar with it from Niven's mote in god's eye, and I've often seen people reference it who obviously got it from there as well, I don't think I'd seen a different version before.

[doug]

In fairness kicking the can has been a frequently-employed strategy for tricky European questions since the Treaty of Rome, and to some non-negligible degrees of success. The only way you can be sure of losing through this strategy is by setting a fixed deadline for yourself when bad things will definitely happen unless you solve the difficult problem.

[skington]

The EU understands kicking the can down the road very well: e.g. Jean-Claude Juncker, “We all know what to do, we just don’t know how to get re-elected after we’ve done it.” So you muddle through, you fudge, and you hope for the best. But that assumes that you're dealing with a collective of more-or-less equals.

With Brexit, you have the EU27 on one side, determined to nip in the bud any secessionist thoughts from anybody else, and a completely hapless (but also doctrinaire) UK on the other. This isn't the sort of situation where you end up with something that nobody is delighted with but nobody actively hates. This is the situation where you end up with the EU dictating terms, like with Greece.

[danieldwilliam]

I agree with your analysis.

It's not obvious that the Labour Party would be in any better situation, either had it narrowly won the last UK General Election or if there was a General Election in the next 6-9 months.

It's also not obvious that the British electorate realises what a bind the political institutions of our country are in and would vote in a way that would unstick the log jam. (See for example current opinion polls and the return of a Sinn Fein MP in Tyrone.) They may not realise the incident pit they've put themselves in until after they have passed the point of no return. Their attitude appears to be to tell politicians to try harder or better, without defining either harder or better.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incident_pit

[calimac]

Good analysis. So what happens now? I can think of 3 things:

1. The EU agrees, out of the goodness of its heart - for it doesn't have to do this - to let the can be kicked, by extending the deadline. Repeat indefinitely as necessary. Could be the evil-minded bureaucrat's way of, in effect, cancelling Brexit altogether by having the deadline never arrive.

2. The EU shows no mercy and the UK is kicked out at the deadline on terms which make the previously-mooted hard Brexit look like a soft pillow.

3. The universe acknowledges the complete impossibility of any course of action and the UK vanishes in a puff of logic.

[andrewducker]

Frankly, I have no idea. I'm hoping we undergo complete collapse, come to our senses, and decide to stay in.

But getting to that point would be...tricky. So frankly I'm at a loss.

(Although Labour are currently hinting at the possibility of a second referendum, which might do it.)