by Jonathan Todd
“Ultimately,” as Edward Luce wrote in the Financial Times recently, “the American people will decide Mr Trump’s fate.”
Impeachment depends upon majorities in both houses of Congress. Which the Democrats do not have. But might after November’s mid-terms.
If Republican voters rally to an embattled Trump, they might retain both houses. Conversely, if the stench of corruption emanating from Trump drives an anti-Trump vote, the Democrats would triumph.
Beto O’Rourke, seeking to unseat Ted Cruz to become the first Democratic Senator for Texas in 25 years, describes the election as, “the most important of our lives”.
Like all Democrats, however, he is riding against the headwind of an economy enjoying (at least in the short-term) the sugar rush of Trump’s tax cuts. In which case, recovering one of the two houses might be a reasonable Democrat performance. Albeit this would leave them requiring Republican votes to impeach Trump.
These votes would only be forthcoming if Republicans deduced they would be in their interests. This would depend upon another people’s verdict: polling on Trump and impeachment.
While unpopular with the rest of America, Trump remains viscerally popular with his base. This is an advantage that he enjoys over President Nixon in the early 1970s, creating a firewall against elected Republicans turning against him.
Robert Mueller is methodically diligent, but the questions that hang over Trump are more political than legal.
The only certainty in the Brexit process is a legal one: unless Article 50 is successfully withdrawn or extended, the UK will exit the EU on 29 March 2019. But Brexit, too, is more political than legal.
The prime minister will go to Brussels and attempt to complete a deal – which is 80% done but which struggles over the Irish border. This deal will then be put to the Commons. Who will be given a choice: May’s deal or no deal.
Is that – as promised – a meaningful vote?
The government will insist so. Those harbouring hopes of keeping the UK in the EU will insist not.
There are numerous Tory MPs that are dissatisfied with May’s deal, both those who resigned from government over it and those keener on keeping the UK in the EU, and if they were to join forces with the opposition parties to vote down this deal, we would enter unchartered territory.
Despite the reassurances from Dominic Rabb from within government and Jacob Rees Mogg from without, are the government serious about driving over the no deal cliff? Or bluffing to try to drive support behind May’s deal?
As no deal suits neither the UK nor the rest of Europe, perhaps an extension to Article 50 might be sought if May fails to secure a deal with the EU or has any such deal defeated in the Commons?
The EU would be more likely to grant an extension if accompanied by a process for arriving at a longer-term resolution of the UK’s relationship with the EU, which a People’s Vote might provide.
While the structure of any referendum would need careful consideration and would be fiercely contested, a referendum seems both more likely to resolve matters and less likely to result in a Corbyn government than a general election, meaning that a majority in the Commons may come to see another referendum as the least bad way forward.
They are more likely to do so, however, if public opinion clearly communicates: opposition in any circumstances to no deal; support both for a People’s Vote and for staying in the EU.
Politicians are looking for a way out of the hole dug for them by the referendum of May 2016. With its undeliverable promises. And certainty that any variant of Brexit will make poorer a country, with its overstretched public services, that can barely afford its way of life. But, despite the lies, dirty money and dodgy data, they still defer to that verdict.
Only a different one will provide politicians with a pro-EU licence, but most of them will withhold seeking this till public opinion is sufficiently behind a People’s Vote and a future for the UK in the EU.
The fate of Brexit, therefore, is as much in the hands of the British people, as that of Trump is in the hands of the American people.
The more rocks Mueller looks under and the more calamitous Brexit becomes, the more public opinion might be felt. Equally, for many, fidelity to Trump/Brexit seems entrenched – a badge of identity.
“Americans are,” as John McCain reminded them in his farewell address and they might recall in their mid-term votes and views on Trump’s impeachment, “citizens of the world’s greatest republic, a nation of ideals, not blood and soil.”
The UK has never really proclaimed anything so stirring. But we’ve usually found a way to do greater good than harm. The past two years have made clear that we won’t continue to do so if the clown car of Theresa May’s government is not turned around and put on a different trajectory by public opinion.
Jonathan Todd is Deputy Editor of Labour Uncut
