Well, that’s it. The curtain has finally come down on the Brexit drama. The British House of Commons last night voted by a clear majority to pass Boris Johnson’s Bill on withdrawal from the EU. End of drama, back to humdrum stuff like the NHS and schools.
But hold. There are a few significant loose ends that need tying up. One is the fact that Johnson was also defeated last night, in his efforts to push through his bill without adequate time for scrutiny by the rest of the House. Johnson wanted not so much an impulse assent as a weary get-it-over. Mercifully, MPs appear to be not quite that stupid. They’ll want to look at the bill carefully, and if that takes until next January, maybe they should recall the words attributed to Michael Collins, when a British accused him of being seven minutes late for the handing-over-of-power ceremony: “You’ve kept us waiting 700 years. You can have your seven minutes.” After three years of inaction and wrangling, between now and New Year’s won’t seem so bad.
However, there’s more. One MP stood up last night and said she was voting for the bill, not because she liked it but because she didn’t. At the time I assumed she was on drugs (and which of us could blame her?) but now it emerges that this bill of Johnson’s will require a second reading before it can pass into law. It’s been given a green light in principle, but the practice might look a bit different. There are MPs who are itching to tack on amendments to it, such as that it must be followed by a confirmatory referendum. Or that a general election needs to be called. In which event Johnson could win a majoriy and the bill would go to second amendment in record time; or that Corbyn could win (don’t laugh – remember recent history), in which case a second referendum might well be on the cards.
But but but, you’re saying. Enough of this pish-tosh. We don’t want to hear about that stuff. One question only matters in terms of amendments: will one of these amendments change the customs arrangements for our twisted green corner, where, as things stand, it will be treated as though it were still within the EU, thus keeping the border invisible?
I’m no lawyer, as they say, but as I understand it, the House of Commons can’t change the customs arrangements. As they are now, so they will continue. Whether you greet this news with profound sadness or with wild bouts of air-punching, that’s how it is. The only possible change might be that the rest of the UK would join our tight NE knot and allow all of the Precious Union to be treated as if it were still in the customs union. And there is no chance that Johnson will agree to that.
They say you should never form a judgement on someone, until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. What is at present consuming unionist politicians – and Jamie Bryson – is that one part of the ‘country’ /UK is being wrenched out of the larger unit, pressured against its will to stay tagged to the EU. They may or may not find solace in the memory that, some 99 years ago, that’s exactly what happened when this stateen was carved out of Ireland.
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