British Parliament rejects Brexit deal: collision with reality

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One thing, you have to leave Theresa May, mastered to perfection: keep your posture. No matter how much you fail, no matter how brutally she is attacked by her opponents in Parliament, the British Prime Minister apparently never loses her composure. Not even at the moment of their worst defeat, the crushing rejection of the EU exit agreement in the lower house (LINK).

You could almost feel sorry for her. But only almost. Because May made an equally conscious and fatal decision right at the beginning of the Brexit process: to fool the British, instead of pouring them pure wine.

May could have done this much easier than other politicians. While a Nigel Farage or a Boris Johnson agitated with half-truths and blatant lies for the EU exit, May was actually against the Brexit. After the referendum, it would have been able to tell voters what their choice means - hard decisions.

May played the game of Brexiteers

She could have explained that continuing a close relationship with the EU would mean accepting many rules and decisions from Brussels in the future without being able to have a say in their negotiation. Or, if Britain chooses more freedom, it will lead to economic disadvantages. And she could have sent a political gambler like Johnson to where he belongs: to the desert.

Instead, she has named Johnson as Secretary of State, embracing his strategy of fooling the people into having anything of their own: full control over immigration, total freedom for new trade contracts with the world, plus the benefits of past EU membership. And, of course, no hard line between Northern Ireland and Ireland, even though nobody knows how to do it today, when Britain leaves the EU Customs Union at the same time.

The opposition is not much better. Labor party leader Jeremy Corbyn has early issued the slogan that only a Brexit deal is acceptable, giving Britain exactly the same benefits as it did at the time of EU membership. That was so obviously impossible from the outset that it equates naked democracy sabotage. A clear vision for the future of Britain outside the EU has remained with Corbyn until today.

Brussels concessions would not help either

At some point, that was clear, it would come to colliding with reality. That's happened with May's defeat in parliament - and it's their fault that it happened so late. Now there is hardly time to prevent a chaos-Brexit without agreements. Although you could postpone the withdrawal date a little, but at the most by a few weeks. Otherwise, a deadline collision threatens the European elections with some bizarre, some dangerous consequences for the rest of the EU.

But why should the EU do that to itself? Currently, there is nothing to suggest that Britain might suddenly come to its senses. Because the core problem persists: British policy is still unwilling to accept the consequences of the Brexit decision and therefore can not know what it really wants from the EU.

For that reason, it does not make much sense to ask the rest of the EU to approach the government in London. For one thing, it is unclear with which concession Brussels could increase the chances of reaching an agreement in London. On the other hand, it is questionable whether this would be possible at all.

EU should prepare for the worst

One should not fool oneself: some of the British MPs are fundamentalists who follow Brexit with quasi-religious fervor. No realistic form of exit from the EU will ever satisfy them, appeals to reason will hardly impress them. Equally well one could try to convince followers of the biblical creation theory with the help of scientific essays of the theory of evolution.

Sure, politicians of this sort are only a minority in the British House of Commons - but this is big enough to torpedo any decision. The majority of the actually Brexit-skeptical MPs, on the other hand, can not unite without risking the division of their own parties and the wrath of voters fueled by the Brexit press.

In fact, Britain may actually have to go through the catastrophe of a no-deal-Brexit to find its way back to itself. The tragedy of this would be that the bill does not pay for those elite Brexiteers who pretend to be against the political elites - but the voters who have been cheated by them.

For the rest of the EU, a no-deal Brexit would be expensive. Therefore, it would be advisable for the 27 other EU countries to focus all their energies on preventing the worst consequences of a no-deal-Brexit with a series of individual agreements - and hoping that the British will one day return to their proverbial to find common sense .