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After a few summer weeks of sanity while Theresa May was tramping the mountains of Austria and Wales, the United Kingdom's Brexit strategy has returned to its earlier state of chaos, and the prime minister's weakness is to blame.
While she was away the cabinet started to form a consensus behind a transition period after Brexit, during which trading conditions would remain as close as possible to the status quo.
The move, driven by her chancellor, Philip Hammond, reassured business leaders who have been pressing the government to avoid a two-stage transition. If businesses had to bear the cost of adapting to a new arrangement after Brexit, they wanted to make just one change, rather than adopting one set of rules for the transition period and another for Brexit proper.
Labour took this approach to its logical conclusion last month when its shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, announced a shift in policy, calling for the UK to remain in the single market and the customs union during a transition phase of up to four years.
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The general election robbed May of her mandate for a hard Brexit
Labour’s move was informed by its better-than-expected performance in June’s general election, when it captured a swathe of Remain-voting Conservative seats and lost only a handful of Leave-voting Labour seats.
The new electoral map is highly encouraging for Labour, with many Conservatives sitting on dramatically reduced majorities and new marginals emerging, particularly in Remain-voting areas of southeast England and in Scotland.
Talk of a new, pro-European centrist party has died down since the election, but Jeremy Corbyn’s advisers fear it could be revived.
Labour’s new Brexit policy offers some protection against the centrist threat, and it has put Corbyn’s party in the unlikely position of darlings of business, on one issue at least.
Robbed of her mandate
The election robbed May of her mandate for a hard Brexit, and ministers have for the most part stopped arguing that no deal is better than a bad deal. The summer months saw order restored to 10 Downing Street following the departure of the prime minister's unloved chiefs of staff, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill.
The new chief of staff, the former MP Gavin Barwell, has made the prime minister's operation more efficient, and her new communications chief, Robbie Gibb, has sharpened the message. And the department for exiting the European Union appeared to be getting into its stride, publishing a flurry of position papers during the summer.
May's January speech at Lancaster House remained the basis of the Brexit policy, promising to leave the single market and the customs union and to end the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. During the summer, however, the government moved towards a flexible interpretation of these principles, suggesting, for example, that there would be no "direct" ECJ jurisdiction.
At the same time, ministers acknowledged that the UK would have to make a payment to the EU as it leaves – a far cry from Boris Johnson’s taunt that Brussels could “go whistle” for the money. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the summer calm was the silence of the Brexiteers in the face of a marked softening of the government’s approach.
The first hint of turbulence came with May’s declaration that she wanted to lead the Conservatives into the next election, scheduled for 2022. After a quick appraisal of the likely contenders, most Conservative MPs concluded before the summer break that a leadership contest would not be in the party’s interest and that May should remain in No 10 – for now.
“For now” meant until after the UK left the EU, in March 2019, unless something happened before then to make her position untenable. After the debacle of June’s election, however, practically none of her colleagues will countenance the idea of May leading them into another.
Insofar as she has a base in the party it is centred on the hard Brexiteers, who have calculated that she is their best bet to secure the hardest achievable Brexit. They may have been silent during the summer, but back at Westminster this week they made their presence felt again.
Populist defence
When the Guardian published a leaked home-office document proposing the immediate end of free movement after Brexit and a harshly restrictive policy towards EU migrants after that, the Brexiteers and their supporters in the media applauded.
There is no majority, in the country or in parliament, for a hard Brexit
May declined to comment on the leak, but in the Commons on Wednesday she offered a populist defence of restricting migration, suggesting that it harmed the poor.
On Thursday, the Brexit secretary, David Davis, ruled out being part of the European Free Trade Association or the European Economic Area, like Norway, during a transition period, describing it as "in many ways, the worst of all outcomes".
On the same day it emerged that up to 40 Conservative MPs had signed a letter warning the government against a transition deal that involved remaining in the single market, paying into the EU budget or being unable to strike new trade deals around the world.
The letter was co-ordinated by the European Research Group, a hardline Brexit caucus within the party, and was encouraged by the Brexit minister Steve Baker and by Suella Fernandes, an aide to Hammond. Some Conservatives have called for both MPs to be sacked, but Baker, as the de-facto leader of backbench Brexiteers, may be too powerful for May to move against.
The prime minister is likely to enjoy two parliamentary victories next week, when the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill passes its second reading and the Democratic Unionist Party backs a Conservative ploy to snatch the chairmanship of key parliamentary committees. Such successes will do nothing to change the political reality that there is no majority, in the country or in parliament, for a hard Brexit.
Her authority hugely diminished, and now the captive of her party's right wing, May appears incapable of delivering any other kind of Brexit. In the meantime, as Michel Barnier likes to observe, the clock is ticking – in Brussels, in British boardrooms and on her own political career.