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Theresa May Took Donald Trump’s Advice and Lost Control

Theresa May Took Donald Trump's Advice and Lost Control

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Theresa May is heading to another European Union summit, no longer as a negotiator, but as a supplicant. She wants the EU to give Britain three extra months before it exits. The EU must decide yes or no, and on what terms; then May will have to keep trying to sell her divorce deal as the country lurches toward one cliff edge or the next. Farce could turn into tragedy.

If only the prime minister had listened to Donald Trump, she wouldn’t be in this mess. That’s the message of an op-ed by First Son Donald Trump Jr. in the conservative Daily Telegraph. In it, he urges Britons and Americans to “reaffirm the decisions they made in 2016 to stand up for themselves against the global elite.”

It’s a point Trump himself likes to make, and repeated last week. And it’s one former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon spelled out in a striking interview with Sky News.

But May has, in fact, done exactly as Trump advised her. In doing so, she hasn’t just jeopardized Brexit. It’s worse than that: Trump’s scorched-earth playbook is destroying both the Republicans in the U.S. and May’s Conservatives, even though the internal conflicts in both parties predate him. 

What did Trump tell May? Trump has never spelled it out exactly, but in his Sky News interview from Michigan, Bannon did. He complained that she ignored all the president’s advice. Did she? Let’s have a look.

“Overshoot the target on your deal because it will come apart.”

May did overshoot. In her Lancaster House speech, much celebrated by Tory Brexiters, she promised to avoid “anything that leaves us half-in and half-out.” Red lines were drawn fast and thick.

She struggled in vain to deliver on that pledge ever since. Her attempt in July, the Chequers Plan on the future U.K.-EU relationship, was a disaster. It was a proposal aimed at keeping the Irish border free from customs checks and retaining at least some of the benefits of the single market in goods trade. The EU rebuffed it as cherry-picking. Conservative Brexiters also balked, claiming it amounted to “vassalage,” requiring the U.K. to remain too closely aligned with EU rules while having no say over them. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Brexit Secretary David Davis resigned over it.

The problem with overpromising is you create new political appetites that can’t be satisfied; the problem with overshooting is that credibility can evaporate. After that, the EU was convinced May had a weak grasp on reality and no control over her own party; Conservative Brexiters no longer trusted her.

“Get on with it; you ought to be in terms agreed in six months.”

Arguably, this was the worst piece of advice a British leader has ever followed. It’s one thing to go into a battle with a weaker side; that happens. But to squander what advantages you have is pure folly.

In order to get on with it and “deliver Brexit” (words she has used over and over), May triggered Article 50, starting the two-year countdown, before having the foggiest idea what was involved or achievable. Then she called an election, wasting valuable negotiating time, lost her parliamentary majority, and put her government at the mercy of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party — a group with just 10 MPs and 0.9 percent of the national vote.

The only way May could have had “terms agreed” in six months is if her government and Parliament had a clear idea from the start of what they wanted and what was realistic for the EU to accept. Haste has instead made for incalculable waste.

“Use every arrow in your quiver even if you have to do litigation later.”

In other words, forget about the niceties of consultation, coalition building or transparency. May did. There was no consulting Parliament until she was forced to, first by Britain’s Supreme Court and later by the speaker of the House. There was no consulting the opposition until a series of historic defeats in Parliament forced her to schedule some token meetings.

Meanwhile, hardliners in her party continue to follow the scorched-earth strategy, with threats this week of a “vote strike,” in which Tory MPs would refuse to support the government.

Parliament voted last week to ask the EU for a short extension and the potential to extend it if May’s deal doesn’t pass by March 20. By all leaked accounts, the prime minister has been forced by hardline Brexiters in her cabinet and their allies to ignore that longer extension and seek only a short delay.

Why are the hardliners so unconcerned about the impact of a no-deal Brexit given the enormous costs to the U.K. economy and its most important trading relationship? It is largely because May’s days are numbered and a contest to replace her has already begun. There is a years’ long trade relationship negotiation to follow the divorce deal and a battle underway to determine whose vision will lead it.

Like U.S. Republican senators from vulnerable seats who voted in support of Trump last week over his policy of declaring a state of emergency on the southern U.S. border, hardline U.K. Conservatives aren’t thinking about the issue; they are thinking of their base.

The Conservative Party has around 124,000 members, most of them committed Brexiters who polls show would choose a no-deal exit over May’s deal by a large majority. If she leaves and Tory lawmakers can’t decide on a single candidate to replace her, then two names will be sent to those party members to vote on. The one from the hard Brexit camp would have to be the favorite — whether it’s Johnson or former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab, both of whom are now openly campaigning.

The Republicans’ ideological conflict is only about a decade long but shows no signs of weakening; for British Conservatives, the battle over Europe has been running for three decades. Trump’s strategies have turned his preferred wing of both parties into the suicide squads of our political times, bent on destroying their own parties if they can’t own them.

Both British Conservatives and Trump Republicans are trying to build a wall. Deep down, most hard Brexiters don’t want to own a no-deal departure any more than most Republicans want their name on Trump’s wall. But they must keep faith with the base. The facts — the real costs or risks of immigration or the burden of EU rules — have long stopped mattering. Once promised, the thing must be done. “He has to fulfill it or die trying,” said Bannon of Trump’s wall.

That is exactly where hardline Conservatives are with Brexit; they and May, contrary to Bannon’s claims, followed Trump’s advice to a T. They are building his wall in Europe — or will die trying.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Edward Evans at eevans3@bloomberg.net

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Therese Raphael writes editorials on European politics and economics for Bloomberg Opinion. She was editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal Europe.

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