Did Trump Throw May A Lifeline?

I am sure he thought he did. Trump’s charm, perhaps his power, is his optimism and self belief. So the G20 was a ‘wonderful success’ and Britain can have a wonderful strong trade deal, very soon. And his relationship with May is close and special. For the beleaguered May, whose Cabinet is barley on speaking terms with her a good deal of the time, this was intoxicating stuff. It will help her politically in the short term because she looks a little less like a political train wreck than before she went to Hamburg.

But after the generous ,very big, wonderful and exciting pronouncements from President Trump, there has to come the action. In the case of a trade deal, a lot of it. A free trade deal means open borders, harmonised regulation, laws and standards, free movement of capital, goods and people. This is not what Trump means. For that would take years to set up, not least because of the vast number of competing interests which would have to be reconciled, and unified. To replace the current deal with the EU with an equivalent with the US is not a realistic aspiration for either country.

But something more limited, starting with specific industries and services where there is already similarity and shared objectives, would be a good beginning. Neither country wants open borders, so there will be no hold up there. But the outcome, while good for those included in it, will not have the blanket advantages of the current EU deal, which is now about to include free trade with Japan.

So the lifeline for May will be rather short, because the real problems to be faced by business, science, finance,education, living costs and jobs, already surfacing, will become starkly apparent as the summer advances. These problems are immediate and have nothing to do with which side you are on. Already the economy is slowing and inflation is rising. As the details of the practical, rather than ideological, difficulties of separating something designed to remain permanent, begin to tumble from Brussels onto the floor of the House of Commons, the two headed malformation of the Tory party trying to go both ways at once, will scupper May’s ability to deliver anything. Power will rest with Parliament, not the Executive. That will change the game. Exactly how will become clear before the clocks go back in the autumn.

Meanwhile the popular politician and likely new leader of the Lib Dems, formerly an effective and objective member of Cameron’s Coalition cabinet, Sir Vince Cable, has today said loud and clear on TV, something now whispered all over Whitehall. That is the complexity of actually delivering an agreed Brexit, when nobody had the faintest idea what was involved when the prospect was offered, will demand a cost none will be willing to pay, so it will not happen. People certainly voted to leave the EU. They did not vote to be worse off, or lose their jobs and their homes. For Trump’s offer to be big enough to set everything straight will require some extraordinary changes in Washington and London, which do not seem at all realistic.

But then again, everything in politics worldwide is up for grabs, so who knows?