Britain’s weird way of passing laws keeps Brussels waiting on #Brexit

It’s an old saying that laws are like sausages, you should never see how they’re made. The words are often attributed to Bismarck but that’s unlikely as German law-making, like German sausage-making, is generally of the highest quality. Although a catastrophic decline in their legal standards in the 1930s and 1940s led to the Germans munching on sausages made of sawdust and curry powder by the end of that disastrous period – writes Owain Glyndwr

Now it’s the British parliament that’s churning out legislation that looks like sub-standard currywurst, though it’s an insult to Berlin street food to compare it to the European Union Withdrawal Bill. What was intended to avoid leaving a gaping hole in UK law when European law ceases to apply in Britain has become a catalogue of attempts to shape the direction of Brexit. It might even get the United Kingdom to the point where its government can tell the European Union what it actually wants.

As the bill reaches its final stages at Westminster, the deal-making and arm-twisting is out in the open. We can all see how the ingredients of the sausage are being decided. Conservative backbenchers who would happily see the UK crash out of the EU without a deal think they have the best recipe.

But so do Tory MPs who want to keep as close to the Customs Union and single market as possible. They’re a small but determined band of perhaps two dozen politicians and they’re the ones gaining influence. Leading the way is Dominic Grieve, who used to be the government’s chief law officer, the Attorney General. A former master of the secretive approach to making legal sausages, he’s now embraced glasnost.

In the House of Commons on Tuesday, he was openly negotiating with the Solicitor General, Robert Buckland, who’s the Attorney’s deputy. Grieve told MPs that he was really worried by the “truly chilling” irrationality of the debate on Brexit, which he called one of the most complex legal and political exercises with which MPs have ever engaged in peacetime.

“If we do not achieve a deal at all, we will be facing an immense crisis. It might be that some of my colleagues on the government benches are excited at this prospect and think it a wonderful moment but I am not. I think it will be catastrophic”, he added.

In order to avoid leaving the EU without a deal, Grieve proposed a series of safeguards if negotiations in Brussels went badly. First, the UK parliament would be guaranteed an early vote on any deal, so that if MPs didn’t like it, they could send ministers back to the negotiating table. Next, there would be a deadline of November 30. If there was no deal by then, MPs would vote on what should happened next. That would open the way to the government being forced to make a concession rather than walk away from negotiations.

Then would come a final deadline, February 15 next year. If there was still no deal, MPs would effectively take over and direct the government what to do, as the prospect of crashing out of the EU at the end of March 2019 drew near. Importantly, Grieve had the numbers. About 24 Conservative MPs and all the opposition parties except the Democratic Unionists were ready to back him. He could defeat the government. Nevertheless, Robert Buckland tried not to give away too much, too soon.

Buckland offered talks about Grieve’s ideas if he didn’t put them to the vote but ruled out anything to “bind the negotiations … disrespect the referendum result”. Grieve replied that if the government wasn’t more helpful than that, MPs would back a proposal from the House of Lords, which the government liked even less than his ideas. “We cannot allow a situation in which there is no mechanism for dealing with no deal”, he added. He required what he called cast-iron assurances.

Buckland tried again. There was now “much merit” in Grieve’s first safeguard but he needed more time to think about his other ideas. Grieve pointed out that Buckland was relying on his good will, which might not last much longer. Buckland assured him that he would negotiate in good faith.

Grieve restated the three safeguards he wanted. The government must accept his second safeguard as well as the first one. There could be talks about the third one but they must come up with a way of dealing with “the crisis that will be enfolding us at the end of February if we have no deal”.

The Speaker said he’d had enough of Buckland negotiating with just one MP, instead of debating with all of them. So the Solicitor General swiftly made his best offer and promised that everything Grieve had asked for would be the basis of “structured talks” before the bill went back to the House of Lords. Grieve emphasised that parliament was entitled to tell the government what to do in a crisis. He then decided to wait for the talks rather than defeat the government on the spot.

So the final safeguard, to handle the crisis if there’s no deal by February, was not agreed in public but left to talks behind the scenes. When the government published what it claimed had been agreed at those talks, Grieve found it unacceptable. Ministers were offering to let MPs debate what should happen but not to decide it.

But he can afford to be patient. He knows the Lords will send the bill back to MPs next week. If he and his fellow rebels hold firm, the government must capitulate -or be defeated. The Brexit hardliners would be furious, as it would be the end of “no deal is better than a bad deal”. All that’s needed now is for the British government to finish negotiating with its own MPs and start the actual negotiations with the European Union.

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