Opinion

Brian Feeney: Shambolic Westminster likely to be Theresa May's saviour

Brian Feeney

Brian Feeney

Historian and political commentator Brian Feeney has been a columnist with The Irish News for three decades. He is a former SDLP councillor in Belfast and co-author of the award-winning book Lost Lives

People forget that Theresa May hasn’t got a mandate for anything. She lost her majority in last year’s election and, as we all know to our cost, governs with the support of the ten DUP suckers.

Therein lie her problems. If she had a mandate she could beat Conservative MPs over the head with it, saying, ‘This is what the people voted for.’ As it is, various factions of her MPs have their own ideas about what people voted for.

The fact, as we see quite clearly, is that there is no majority in the British parliament for anything: hard Brexit, soft Brexit, no deal, second referendum, general election, and quite obviously, not for the deal May is advocating. Yesterday the House of Commons was an unprecedented shambles, full of headless chickens rushing about the corridors in all directions. That’s what’s likely to save Theresa May. There is no leader of the opposition to her. It’s not a united opposition but several competing factions.

Many of her own MPs loathe her, despise her, are infuriated by her, but they can’t get rid of her. The loudest opponents in the so-called European Research Group (ERG) led by that absurdly affected anachronism Rees-Mogg, are dithering about whether to submit letters of no confidence so that there’s a vote of no confidence in her. The trouble is, if they lost which they will certainly do, May is immune from challenge for a year. They’d be stuck with her. So she blunders doggedly on, and yesterday made quite clear she intends to stagger on until 2022 as she snapped in response to an SNP MP.

So let’s take stock. Theresa May intends to go to the meeting of the European Council on November 25 claiming she has the support of her Cabinet for the draft treaty. Then she returns to Westminster to put it to the vote in early December. At present there’s no chance she’ll get it through. The best calculation is that with the DUP, ERG, SNP, and Labour (most of them) against her she’s 35 votes short. Then what?

As Theresa May told MPs yesterday, no matter what fantasy they opt for, Canada plus plus, Norway plus, they don’t solve the problem of the British border in Ireland and the EU will not agree to anything without a backstop in Ireland, end of.

The Irish government’s diplomats in Brussels led by the permanent representative, veteran ambassador Declan Kelleher, have achieved such an outstanding success since 2016 that the bottom line and top line in negotiations is that the border in Ireland which the British imposed in 1921 must remain open.

What a supreme irony that the British border the Ulster Unionists insisted on a century ago has now become the lever which prises them from the rest of the UK. Truly they are hoist on their own petard. Even more delightful, as predicted here and by every stripe of nationalism, the DUP have served their purpose and May has thrown them under a bus.

They’re just another right-wing faction. Now they deserve the derision heaped on them for their appalling disregard for the economic welfare of the people of the north.

May might well quote William Andrews Clark, who bribed the Montana legislature in 1899, when he said in his defence, ‘I never bought a man who wasn’t for sale.’

The EU has made clear there’s no other deal or reworked deal available. British MPs will look into the abyss before they are compelled to vote for this deal in December after a month of turmoil because they’ve no alternative and there’s no majority for a ‘no deal’.