Parliament STINKS at Negotiation

Why Parliament's Brexit Strategy is Terrible

Today, Theresa May was dealt a major blow by the pro-EU Speaker of the House of Commons. From Bloomberg, "Theresa May’s Brexit strategy was dealt a major blow by House of Commons Speaker John Bercow when he effectively banned her from bringing her deal back to Parliament for a third time, unless it changes significantly."

The pro-EU faction of Parliament is playing for time. May's side has already "accused the speaker of seeking to soften the divorce by helping Parliament seize control of the process."

If indeed the goal of Speaker Bercow's move today was to make Brexit softer or even do away with it, then he and his camp have just made an asinine strategic decision.

They are all acting under the unvalidated assumption that an extension is a given and that they can negotiate further. There are MAJOR problems with this assumption. For one, the EU's Chief Brexit Negotiator, Michel Barnier, has said that "the time for negotiations between the UK and European Union is over and there will be no more 'clarification' on the Withdrawl Agreement." EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker warned May that "if her Brexit deal was voted down again, there would be “no third chance." It was voted down anyways -- now Parliament has no third chance. The EU side has quite literally said that negotiation is over and no new/revised deal will be given to the British side -- in other words, what May got last week is what Parliament has to work with. And that deal has just been made unexecutable, because now Parliament can't even vote on it anymore due to Speaker Bercow's actions.

Second, the British have no leverage to negotiate anyway. The leverage they had was the threat of No-Deal and the damage it would cause the EU side, but they just voted to take No-Deal off the table. That means the British have no leverage now and have publicly declared that they are unwilling to leave the negotiating table no matter how bad the deal that the EU gives them is. The Guardian puts this terrible strategic decision into perspective: "if a director publicly said during negotiations that the firm could not walk away without an agreement, they would be sacked for undermining the firm’s bargaining position." Additionally, there are those in the EU who would like to see Britain punished for Brexit.

So, what we have now is the pro-EU MPs betting that they can secure an extension and negotiate for a better deal, when the EU has publicly stated that neither of those goals is possible, and when Parliament has already thrown away their negotiating leverage.

So all the Speaker's motion has served to do is to move Britain closer to one of two options -- a No-Deal Brexit on March 29 (the worst possible outcome for the Remain camp), or a second referendum seeking to reverse the Brexit vote (a democratic travesty -- but I guess that does fulfill Remainers' goals). So either the Remain camp is completely brainless, or they are actively trying to throw democracy under the bus in order to Remain at all costs. Great job!