Politics

It's crunch day for the Labour/Tory Brexit talks. After a weekend of government leaks and briefings, both sides will today meet to see if a deal can be agreed. It's clear that Theresa May is keen to make an agreement with Jeremy Corbyn in order to pass some form of Brexit. The hope in Downing Street is that the disappointing local election results for both main parties will be enough to prompt the Labour leader to cut a deal. As for what that compromise will consist of, the government is willing to move on the customs arrangement – committing the UK to something very similar to a customs union (most likely a customs union in all but name) for the timebeing – but aiming to keep the option on the table for the trading relationship to change in the future.

When John Glenn was asked what went through his mind as he became the first American in space, he said it was the nerve-wracking thought that 'every part of this rocket was supplied by the lowest bidder.' It’s a revealing insight. Perhaps even more so than the ‘Blue Marble’ photograph of Earth taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, which inspired early environmentalists. Glenn was acknowledging that market economics made it possible for a government to achieve Herculean feats. True, the Soviets were in the race too, but then their system collapsed completely. Capitalism has staying power – and that’s what we need now in the fight against climate change.

Until recently, the rules on political labelling were clear. If you voted Labour, supported Remain and expressed how much you cared about refugees on Facebook, you were left wing and therefore a good person. If you voted Tory, supported Leave or failed to signal your virtue on social media with the required frequency, you were right wing and therefore bad. Today, however, this system for dividing society into good and evil is crumbling under the weight of its own oversimplifications. It turns out that plenty of traditional Labour voters supported Leave, while many Tories went for Remain. The emergent Brexit Party has a broad range of candidates from both sides of the political spectrum. How complicating and how frustrating.

The local election results showed that both main parties are paying a price for the Brexit impasse. This, as I say in The Sun this morning, means that the cross-party talks have a better chance of succeeding than they did. Those in the talks are more optimistic than they have been about getting some kind of agreement, if not a full-blown deal. But they know that things could change very quickly. I understand that the compromise being drawn up goes as follows. The UK would initially enter into a ‘comprehensive customs arrangement’ with the European Union. This would be very similar to a customs union.