Customs union debacle could be May’s back me or sack me moment
Having enjoyed a few, brief weeks of popularity on the back of her Iron Lady moments following the Salisbury attack, Theresa May is back in familiar territory – quick sand.
This time however it is not the electorate who are saying enough is enough – although this mornings local election results will give us a sense of the Prime Ministers standing across the country – but her own MPs.
For months May has survived by keeping her party onside, papering over the deep divisions unearthed by Brexit and lurching from one crisis to the next. This week, with the thorny customs union issue set for resolution, leadership needed to be shown and decisions needed to be made – but on both counts she was found to be lacking.
Wednesdays much-hyped Brexit war Cabinet, where her top team was to thrash out a single proposal on customs arrangements to take to Brussels, ended with the can being kicked down the road yet again.
But even had she persuaded the top team, including newly-promoted home secretary Sajid Javid, to back her preferred customs partnership route, it was unlikely to pave the way to success. Brussels has already rejected it. So, too, have a formidable number of her own backbenchers.
Its not only Jacob Rees-Mogg – whose European Research Group this weekend threatened to make the customs issue a matter of confidence – who has had enough. More moderate Brexiters have started “mouthing off” about the mess being made of the whole thing. There is, as one source said, “a new dynamic” in Westminster.
On the other side, Remainers are becoming so bold they claim they now “have the numbers” to defeat her on anything but a future customs union – albeit not necessarily in name.
The fact that May couldnt get her closest colleagues to agree a position when she still has multiple political battles on the horizon shows just how near-impossible this task is.
There is only one person who can resolve this situation, and that is the Prime Minister. So far, most of what we have seen has involved delaying and fudging, but the clock is ticking and in the end a decision must be made.
Resolving the customs debate, and with it the complexities of the Irish border, should not be handled as an exercise in keeping May in Number 10, but about respecting the referendum result in a way that makes sense for our future trade freedom.
The ramifications for May are huge, but for the country as a whole they are even bigger. The time has come to make it crystal clear what the government's policy is and, if it is not enough to keep would-be rebels onside, then May faces a stark choice. She is facing her own "back me or sack me" moment.
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