Polly Toynbee: The same conundrums, but no new answers

No one waited with bated breath for Theresa May’s speech once we knew the cabinet had vetted it. Anything that the “team” that has stuck us in the verbal bog of “managed regulatory divergence” all agree on can never take us forward. Unify the country? Show us a united cabinet first.

Her mood music struck up a more melodious tone, promising hard choices and compromises. Yet she spelled out few on her side, and many for the EU to swallow. But she can only edge forward slowly while she lets her cabinet Brexiteers control the brake.

Brussels waited to hear if the vicar’s daughter has finally given up cake for Lent. But no. Here was a choice list of vital agencies it’s blindingly obvious we must pay any price to stay within – aviation, medicines, Euratom, maritime, rail – and plenty more. Losing access to those will cause life-changing injury, but so far Brussels says no to that pick-and-mix.

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Her pitch is for our sovereign parliament to decide on each and every regulation to align us with the EU. Her compromise is to suppose a wise Commons will always choose to stay aligned and keep the free trade flowing – sovereign but in practice obedient. The EU has already scorned this voluntary arrangement, at risk of U-turn by whim of parliament.

Hard choices, she promised, but offered only the same conundrums, with no new answers. Magic no-friction on the Irish border, again, while free trading with the world. Her five tests were a wish list as contradictory as ever. We will have it all, control our borders, no free movement, no breaking our union. Her softer tone matters in these hardest of negotiations, but in the end content and compromise count most.

“Is it worth it?” asked a wise German journalist. That’s what Britain must decide. Fear the worst when she reprised her dreadful threat: “No deal is still better than a bad deal.” Surely by now she knows no deal is the worst fate of all.

• Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

Katy Balls: In not upsetting either wing of her party, this was a success

Ahead of Theresa May’s speech, a Conservative arch-Eurosceptic told me that the best way to judge its success was not to focus on whether the majority of MPs were happy but instead watch how his side and Anna Soubry’s side reacted. He said that should either group feel able to gloat then the prime minister would have a problem.

In that vein, May’s speech could be classed as a success. She managed to dish out problems and compromises to both sides of her party. While she tried to strike an optimistic note – and paint a picture of a global Britain with strong ties to Europe – she was clear that there were trade-offs ahead.

Remain MPs hoping for a climbdown on the government’s opposition to “a” customs union were left disappointed. The prime minister reiterated her opposition to joining “a” customs union and went further, making clear that she wants the UK to be able to set its own tariffs for goods not being moved straight on to the EU. That suggests not even a partial customs union is possible. What’s more, May was clear that this wouldn’t be a soft Brexit when it comes to the City. She said she accepted passporting for financial institutions would end but hoped that financial services could be part of a “special partnership” based on mutual recognition of standards.

On the other side, the most difficult moment for the Brexiteers will have been May’s utterance of two words: “binding agreement”. At Thursday’s cabinet meeting, Brexit-backing ministers pushed back against the phrase, which David Davis and Boris Johnson felt went further than what was agreed at the Chequers awayday. The fact May said that the UK will make binding commitments for regulations to remain in step with EU ones in some areas shows that economics still trumps sovereignty in certain areas. The UK will also be a rule-taker in the various EU agencies that May says she wants the UK to remain part of even after Brexit.

This is a speech that will have left neither the remain or Brexit side of her party particularly happy – but then again with such different demands, perhaps mutual dissatisfaction was the order of the day.

• Katy Balls is the Spectator’s political correspondent

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘It was not a speech of crystal-clear clarity.’ Photograph: Peter Nicholls/PA

Maya Goodfellow: May just showed she has no coherent plan

Eleven months after article 50 was triggered, Theresa May’s speech offered a strong diagnosis of the problems in negotiations (which we already knew) and a softening of rhetoric. She angled for a mutually beneficial partnership with the EU; to the chagrin of Brexiter Tories, she essentially spelled out all the reasons a hard departure from the EU would be a disaster for the UK.

Still, it was not a speech of crystal-clear clarity: she claimed Brexit would boost UK prosperity but bring with it significant problems – and we all know under the Tories it’s the poorest in society that those problems always seem to have most impact on. And still there was no agreed solution on the Irish border question.

The deal “must be consistent with the kind of country we want to be as we leave: a modern, open, outward-looking, tolerant, European democracy,” she said, spelling out point four on her list of tests. If the UK is going to become that country under the Tories once we leave the EU, it would mean unprecedented political change for the former home secretary who created the “hostile environment” policy. As she talked about an “open” and “modern” country, thousands of homeless people, more or less abandoned by the government, are sleeping on the streets and 120 women, indefinitely detained in Yarl’s Wood, are currently on a hunger strike.

May’s speech might be something of a shift in position but there remains a yawning gap between the government and the opposition. The week began with Jeremy Corbyn fleshing out the kind of deal Labour would like to strike with the EU, which would put workers’ rights first; it ended with the government, the actual negotiators at the table, unconvincingly claiming they would do the same.

The Tories have no coherent plans: May started her speech by quoting the first one she made as prime minister, but all that served to show was how little she has done in office. No matter the “tests” May laid out today, this speech cannot change that.

• Maya Goodfellow is a writer and researcher

John Redwood: I hope the EU responds warmly to this generous vision

The prime minister set out some noble aims and plenty of detail on how the new trading arrangements could work if the EU does wish to have a comprehensive free trade agreement and customs understanding with us. She spoke in words that should bring together many who voted remain and many who voted leave, concentrating on how we can have a good relationship with the rest of the EU once we have left.

The UK has been most accommodating in the negotiations so far, offering money for a transitional period, offering a full free trade deal so their exporters do not face tariffs in future, and reassuring all those who have come here under EU law that they are most welcome to stay. I do hope the EU now responds positively and warmly to this speech, agreeing in principle to the prime minister’s vision of a wide-ranging free trade agreement. The offer is clearly well meant and the overall package the UK has in mind generous to the rest of the EU.

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Many leave voters just want to exit and get on with spending all the money we will save once properly out. I agree with them that we do need to spend more on the NHS, our education system and other public services, and the easiest way to pay for all that will be from the savings in EU contributions. I also look forward to the day, after a clean Brexit such as the one described by the prime minister, when the UK parliament can abolish VAT on feminine hygiene products, green products including heating controls and draught excluders, and on domestic energy where we could help anyone struggling with high fuel bills.

• John Redwood is the Conservative MP for Wokingham and a leading Brexiter