A win, loss or draw for her Brexit plan? Jury out on Theresa May's week | | | As Labour motion passed, remainers and leavers both claimed a win – splitting opinion almost as much as those trousers | | |  Theresa May is joined by schoolchildren to turn on the Christmas lights outside No 10. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA
| | | Jon Henley and Peter Walker
| | | Welcome to the Guardian's weekly Brexit briefing, a summary of developments as Britain moves towards the EU exit. If you'd like to receive it as a weekly email, please sign up here (and check your spam folder if you don't see it in your inbox).
A heads-up, also, that the Guardian has launched a Brexit podcast: Brexit Means… The first episode offers a brief history of Brexit and you can listen to it here. Episode two looks at article 50 and the various legal challenges to it. It will be out next week. Producing the Guardian's independent, in-depth journalism takes a lot of time and money. But we do it because we believe our perspective matters – and it might well be your perspective too. If you value our Brexit coverage, become a Guardian Supporter and help make our future more secure. Thank you. The big picture Win, loss or score draw? The jury is still out on whether Theresa May suffered a grievous defeat at the hands of parliament last week or pulled off a resounding victory. Or whether it was perhaps a bit of both. What happened, first, was that Labour joined forces with a bunch of Conservative rebels to demand that the prime minister publish the government's plan for Brexit before article 50 is triggered and the UK starts the two-year divorce process. This she promised to do – whereupon MPs led by the astute shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, insisted the plan must actually be a plan, as opposed to some vague hope (as in the now-familiar "get the best possible deal for Britain"). Starmer insisted that to qualify as a plan, it must answer key questions. such as would the UK seek to stay in the customs union and the single market, but also provide enough detail for MPs to scrutinise it and economists to assess its impact. | | | Remainers saw it as a big win in the battle for more clarity on the government's somewhat opaque Brexit strategy. Leavers, however, insisted ministers had won, because it was never said how much detail the "plan" would actually contain – and because in the same non-binding vote, MPs also promised to let the government trigger Brexit by the end of March. By approving Labour's motion – demanding a Brexit plan – and the government amendment – setting an article 50 deadline – parliament had in effect given the government "a blank Brexit cheque", leavers argued. | | | Remainers, of course, denied this, mainly because the supreme court – which spent four enthralling days hearing submissions on the question – may decide ministers cannot trigger article 50 without passing a whole new bill anyway. That, obviously, would demand another parliamentary vote. As they showed last week, MPs are highly unlikely to vote against any proposed article 50 legislation (that would be "defying the will of the people"). But they could significantly amend it, forcing May, for example, to put a lot more meat on the bones of the government's plan than she would like to. The 11 judges announce their decision in January; it will be a big moment. On Monday, the chancellor, Philip Hammond, told MPs – in slightly convoluted fashion – that the government would be likely to seek a transitional deal to help smooth the Brexit process, confirming that in his view it may well take longer than two years to complete negotiations: There is an emerging view ... that having a longer period to manage the adjustment between where we are now and where we get to in the future as a result of negotiations would be generally helpful. Whether the UK will be offered such a deal is not clear; EU officials have not shown themselves particularly keen thus far. The view from Europe The EU's chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, put the cat among the pigeons somewhat, saying – to London's apparent surprise – that Britain would have less than 18 months to secure its article 50 divorce. The Frenchman said the EU would need a few weeks to sort out its negotiating stance at the beginning of the article 50 process and a few months to ratify the agreement at the end. He also laid out the key principles of the bloc's approach.
| | | Michel Barnier, the EU's chief Brexit negotiator. Photograph: Thierry Monasse/AP
| | | The EU would seek first and foremost to preserve the unity and interests of its 27 remaining members, he said, and would continue to refuse all negotiation before notification. Brexit must be a worse deal for Britain than EU membership, and curbs on free movement were not compatible with full access to the single market: Being in the EU comes with rights and benefits – third countries can never have the same rights and benefits. The single market and its four freedoms are indivisible. Cherry picking is not an option. Barnier also said it was "difficult to imagine" an interim deal at present, without knowing exactly what kind of final deal the UK might want. Elsewhere, Matteo Renzi's defeat in a referendum on constitutional reform was greeted by Eurosceptics everywhere as another nail in the coffin of the EU. It was hardly a welcome development, but there was little to suggest the result had much to do with Europe: this was not Italy's Brexit moment. | | | And just a few hours earlier, Alexander Van der Bellen, the overtly pro-European leftist candidate in Austria's presidential elections, defeated Norbert Hofer, whose party was founded by a former SS officer, prompting heady talk of a post-Brexit bounce in support for the ailing European project. With elections in the Netherlands, France and Germany, 2017 will tell us more. Meanwhile back in Westminster Westminster's focus this week was again partly directed elsewhere, on a byelection. But while last week's upset in Richmond pointed to a remainers' rebellion, Thursday's vote in Lincolnshire's Sleaford and Hykeham brought another message. Yes, the Conservatives were expected to keep the strongly pro-leave seat, with Ukip maybe to finish second. The message, perhaps, came in the relegation of Labour from a strongish second to a miserable fourth, behind the Lib Dems. As one alarmed Labour MP theorised, in trying to balance its Brexit strategy between the will of the 52% of leave voters and 48% of remainers, the party may have ended up annoying both and becoming "the party of the 0%". The warning did not seemingly focus minds in the party, where two senior MPs, Diane Abbott and Andy Burnham, spent the weekend saying precisely opposite things on post-Brexit freedom of movement. | | | The former party leader Ed Miliband also entered the fray, formally coming out for a softer Brexit, and saying limited curbs to immigration were a necessary price to pay for single market membership. Elsewhere, some conspiracy-minded types have wondered whether the fuss over Theresa May's leather trousers is an example of the dead cat strategy. More likely, it's just an indicator of how poisonous relations have become between the PM and some of her more rebellious backbenchers. The former education secretary Nicky Morgan was barred from a Downing Street Brexit meeting with May for talking disparagingly about the £995 trousers, a snub that escalated with the leak of furious texts between Morgan and May's chief of staff. (More fashion-minded types thought the real scandal lay elsewhere: who wears baggy leather trousers?) | | | You should also know that: - QC Jolyon Maugham is asking the Irish courts to decide whether article 50 is reversible, in a case aimed at reaching the European court of justice.
- Another legal challenge wants the courts to rule on whether the government needs parliamentary approval to withdraw from the single market.
- The home secretary, Amber Rudd, said EU nationals in post-Brexit Britain will will need "some form of ID".
- Advocacy group the3million has urged Theresa May to unilaterally guarantee the rights of EU nationals who settled in the UK before the referendum.
- A report by the thinktank British Future made the same recommendation.
- The Open Britain campaign group said UK businesses will have to deal with 60m more pieces of paperwork each year if Britain leaves the customs union.
- Guy Verhofstadt, the EU parliament's point man on Brexit, said EU associate citizenship would be "on the table" for Britons in the exit talks.
- A hard Brexit would do lasting damage to the UK economy, reducing GDP per head while having little effect on low-paid workers' wages, new research said.
- Kezia Dugdale, the Scottish Labour leader, called for a new political settlement and a federal state to unite the UK after Brexit.
- The estate agents Savills said half of planned office developments in central London were likely to be postponed as a result of the Brexit vote.
- In much-mocked remarks, May once more declined to elaborate on her plans, saying this time she wanted a "red, white and blue Brexit".
Read these: Matthew d'Ancona reckons Theresa May was pretty clever with her amendment in the Commons last week, and her article 50 ruse has caught the remainers off-guard: This edges the PM closer to the moral high ground, and strengthens her claim to be the authentic champion of democracy. She signals that she respects both the referendum and representative democracy, and challenges MPs to follow suit. As a holding position, it is a cunning plan. | | | In the FT (paywall), Jana Ganesh argues beautifully that Britain's refusal to accept that continentals actually mean what they say is a cultural difference that is doing the UK no favours at all: The EU will do more to set the terms of Britain's extrication than Britain itself. It is also characteristically candid about what those terms will be, if only we could switch off our Wildean irony radar and accept words at face value ... When Angela Merkel, German chancellor, talks up the indivisibility of the four freedoms, a good time-saving exercise is to believe her. When EU leaders rejected informal talks in advance of article 50, ministers in London smiled at the charade and waited for the European line to waver. They still wait. And back in the Guardian, Rafael Behr says May risks becoming an "accidental Europe-wrecker" by feeding a Ukip-inspired image of the EU: A spokeswoman has accused MPs of "frustrating the will of the people" and failing to "back the UK team". Downing Street is creeping into that Ukip zone where any residue of interest in European integration is unpatriotic, verging on treasonous ... The prime minister cannot play with this combative tone at home without being heard abroad. Meanwhile, hardliners give the impression Brexit contains aggressive intent towards the whole European project. If May is in the business of reconciliation, she is running out of time to prove it. Tweet of the week If you missed it, Rupert Myers from GQ live-tweeted what really happened in the supreme court last week. It was quite a party. Do read the full thread, you won't regret it ... | | | | |
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