Does Jeremy Corbyn’s meeting with Tory advocates of a Norway-style deal mean we are heading for a soft Brexit?

Analysis: Nick Boles and Oliver Letwin met the Labour leader this afternoon: is this, asks John Rentoul, the beginning of a cross-party compromise?

Can Jeremy Corbyn create a soft Brexit alliance? (AFP/Getty)

Nick Boles and Oliver Letwin are Conservative backbench MPs who support a super-soft form of Brexit known as Norway-plus.

Their suggestion, which they call Common Market 2.0, is that we should be like Norway, outside the EU but a member of its single market. Not only that, but we should also be in a customs union with the EU, which is an even closer relationship than Norway’s.

There is some overlap between their plan and the Labour Party’s policy, which is to keep Britain in a permanent customs union with the EU. So it is significant that Jeremy Corbyn is holding talks with Boles and Letwin.

Some MPs are thinking ahead to Tuesday next week, and asking what will happen if the prime minister’s deal, possibly with a legal codicil attached (on the Irish border question), is voted down again.

They wonder if there might be a cross-party majority in the House of Commons for a softer Brexit based on a compromise between Labour policy and the Boles-Letwin plan.

You can see how the parliamentary arithmetic might work. At the moment, Theresa May cannot get her deal through because neither hard-Brexit Tory MPs nor soft-Brexit Labour MPs will vote for it.

If she made her plan softer – that is, if she switched to proposing an even closer economic relationship with the EU after we have left – maybe the vast majority of Labour MPs would vote for it. This might more than compensate for the number of Tory MPs she would lose off the other end of the seesaw, and might give her the Commons majority she needs.

There are obvious drawbacks to this cunning plan, which is why it hasn’t happened so far.

One is that May would be left with a rump Tory party. She would probably be able to retain the support of only a minority of her MPs for such a deal – led by Amber Rudd and Philip Hammond in the cabinet and a large cohort of junior ministers, but a rather depleted contingent of backbenchers.

She would be in a position mirroring that of Ramsay MacDonald, the Labour prime minister who led a government of mostly Conservative MPs after the economic crisis of 1931.

If the PM’s deal is defeated on Tuesday the Commons would certainly vote the next day against leaving the European Union without a deal, but after that things become less clear

Another problem is Corbyn. Even if the compromise gave him everything he says Labour wants – a permanent customs union, protections for workers’ rights and so on – it would be hard to imagine him whipping his MPs to prop up a Tory prime minister, even one who was implementing a “Labour Brexit”.

As it is, Theresa May’s Brexit deal is very close to what a Labour government would have negotiated.

Indeed, there is no material difference between the withdrawal agreement that Corbyn says he wants and the one she presented to the Commons in January. The government and opposition disagree only about details of the long-term trade relationship with the EU that has to be negotiated after we leave.

A third problem is that Norway-plus is in effect EU membership without voting rights, and it would mean accepting the free movement of people – possibly with a few token restrictions that are claimed to be compatible with EU law.

But who knows what could happen if the prime minister’s deal is defeated on Tuesday? The Commons would certainly vote the next day against leaving the EU without a deal, but after that things become less clear. MPs might then vote to postpone Brexit – or they might vote against that too.

Either way, it is possible that Norway-plus might be one of the options that comes into play. In which case, the extent of the common ground that Corbyn, Boles and Letwin found today could decide the nation’s future.

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