London
They’re right. If Brexit feels interminable, it is because it is.
After yanking a vote on her Brexit deal last week, Prime Minister Theresa May said Parliament won’t get a chance to vote until after the Christmas holidays, during the third week of January. An exact date has not been set.
Jeremy Corbyn, the opposition Labour party leader, got to his feet on Wednesday to charge May with “recklessly running down the clock” in order to rob the country of any real alternative to her unloved Brexit deal. “The reality is the prime minister is stalling for time,” Corbyn said.
Alongside her well-known traits of grit, stubbornness and secrecy, May’s future biographers may add brinksmanship.
Whether by cunning or incompetence, she is taking Brexit to the wire — which her admirers and critics say might have been her plan all along.
According to European leaders, everything should have been settled by now. But nothing is settled at all.
And unless there is another delay — a possibility — Britain is scheduled to leave the EU on March 29.
After spending two years in Brussels talking, a final withdrawal agreement was promised by October, then November, then December. Now January.
And the prime minister is offering British lawmakers, especially those in her own Conservative party, the starkest of choices: Her deal or no deal.
Over the holidays, May wants her fellow Tories to have a good, long think about the cost of leaving the European Union with no deal, a scary scenario that envisions economic chaos and cancelled European vacations.
May’s Cabinet on Tuesday activated a multibillion-dollar emergency plan to prepare for no deal, including sending letters to 140,000 British firms updating them on what they should do now, beyond pray.
Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson also announced the British army will place 3,500 troops, including infantry units, on standby, “in order to support any government department on any contingencies they may need.”
What might British soldiers do in a Brexit emergency? Free up police busy putting down civil unrest; patrol the English Channel to stop goods smugglers and human traffickers; airlift vital medical supplies; and use their cargo ships to ferry food and fuel.
Is this prudent planning — or something else? Sir Vince Cable, leader of the Liberal Democrat party and an arch-opponent to Brexit, described the announcements and their timing as “psychological warfare.”
The Labour leader agreed. “There is still no majority for her shoddy deal in this house. It isn’t stoical, it’s cynical,” Corbyn said Wednesday. He accused May of ramping up contingency plans for a no-deal Brexit as a way to drive through her deal.
“Stop dithering and put it to a vote!” he bellowed.
Not to be outdone, May accused Corbyn of not having no realistic Brexit plan and of stalling himself.