[Nicky91]

The next year will see a fresh Brexit crisis, parliament sidelined and a renewed threat to the union – but there is still hope for supporters of progressive politics, according to some of the leading figures who took on the government over Brexit.

The 80-strong majority secured by Boris Johnson at the election ended the parliamentary stalemate that left the prime minister unable to push through his Brexit deal. The election also ended the tenures of key figures responsible for leading the battle to oppose his plans.

The Observer spoke to David Gauke, who quit the cabinet; Sam Gyimah, who defected from the Tories to the Lib Dems; Anna Soubry, who set up a new party; and Dominic Grieve, who helped lead the fight against Brexit in parliament, about the crucial year ahead. They pointed to key contradictions in Johnson’s plans that could lead quickly to a Brexit crisis – and predicted he would not pivot towards securing a soft Brexit trade deal with the EU.

Gauke said Johnson was now in an enormously strong position, with parliament unable to curb his plans. However, he said the prime minister now faced the problem of delivering Brexit without inflicting further pain on the very areas, such as the Midlands and the north-east, that delivered him a majority.

“To what extent is he going to deliver a purist form of Brexit, or is he going to look to find a pragmatic way forward that ensures our economy can grow?” he said. “I would have thought the more likely course of action for him is to keep beating the Brexit drum and blame any difficulties on the EU and appear defiant. His determination to diverge makes it hard to see common ground. I hope some kind of pragmatic compromise is the way forward, but given how boxed in he is on the implementation period not being extended and an apparent determination to reject any kind of dynamic alignment, I think we may well find ourselves at the end of 2020 facing real problems.

“The part of the country that is likely to be worst hit by a hard Brexit is the north-east of England, an area that has voted Conservative in a way that is unprecedented. That’s going to make it hard … If you haven’t got a strong economy that gives you the money to spend on the north of England, then it will be very hard to square the circle.”

Gyimah agreed: “Bumper-sticker slogans like ‘take back control’ and ‘get Brexit done’ may unite different tribes for the purposes of a campaign, but their interests are not aligned. The faultlines that run through Brexit are as real as ever.

“There are painful trade-offs ahead, which will affect every sector and every constituency in the country in different ways. An 80-seat majority cannot deny this reality, nor can you use pork-barrel politics to blunt the edge of every hard Brexit policy decision. Most of those new MPs will have some tough explaining to do to their constituents as the rubber hits the road. And a slower-growing economy means less money for public services, and a new era of self-imposed austerity.”

The prospect of securing a good trade deal at the end of 2020 was very uncertain, said Grieve. “One of the themes of the election that continues to be of great concern to me is the risk of ending up with either a very unsatisfactory deal or no deal at all. I think they are very considerable.”

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read more at
https://www.theguardian.com/politics...will-be-fought