Hardline Brexiteers want to push May into refusing to pay the EU a £50bn 'divorce settlement' – it's a terrible idea

The Donald Trump playbook has arrived in British politics. How else can we interpret the intimidating letter signed by more than 70 MPs warning the BBC that its survival will be “in doubt” unless politicians and the public view it as impartial on Brexit? In other words, tone down the allegedly anti-Brexit tone of your coverage or else.

I can hear Trump saying the same. The only surprise is that the MPs didn’t accuse the BBC of pumping out “fake news” on Brexit. Their criticism is unjustified in my view. The BBC is much more balanced than the majority of our newspapers.

Is the BBC supposed to write the views of the 48 per cent out of its script? Is it supposed to ignore genuine concerns about the impact of Brexit on the economy at the Treasury, the Bank of England and among many economists? Ah, they were all wrong before the referendum, the Brexiteers cry.

In the short-term, yes. But not everything in the garden is as rosy as the Brexit brigade claim. Inflation now runs ahead of wages for the first time since October 2014. Was the BBC supposed to report Tuesday’s figures without saying that the main cause of rising prices is the fall in the pound since the referendum? Why, when money is tight, does Philip Hammond need a £26bn war chest to cushion us against the Brexit effect?

The attempt to browbeat the BBC is part of a much wider picture. The Brexiteers are not satisfied by their historic final victory last June. They act as if the prize will somehow be snatched away from them. It won’t be; Theresa May will deliver it. Yet they have not laid down their weapons.

Instead, they have pushed May down the path to hard Brexit, ruling out membership of the single market, customs union and European Court of Justice without even trying to negotiate on them. In doing so, May played into the hands of the SNP, opening the door for today’s call by the Scottish Parliament for another independence referendum.

The Brexiteers are not done yet. Their new campaign is to play down the risks of “no deal” with the EU and defaulting to the economically damaging tariffs of a World Trade Organisation regime. “Perfectly OK,” according to Boris Johnson.

The hardliners seem to hate the EU so much that they would cut off the UK’s nose to spite its face. They are warning May not to pay up when the EU demands a divorce settlement of about £50bn. They will allow her little room for manoeuvre, boosting the prospects of crashing out of the EU without a deal.

As the BBC letter shows, they tolerate no dissent. Anyone opposing hard Brexit is portrayed as wanting to overturn the referendum decision, which in most cases is untrue. The hardliners stirred the pot against Hammond over his Budget rise in national insurance contributions for the self-employed, knowing that a U-turn would weaken the Cabinet’s strongest advocate of soft Brexit.

They claim to speak for the majority but they do not. The National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) reported this week that free trade with the EU – favoured by 88 per cent of Leave voters and 91 per cent of Remainers – is more popular than ending EU free movement (supported by 68 per cent overall, including a majority of Remainers). A majority of people (54 per cent) would accept free movement in return for keeping free EU trade.

May’s allies reject the idea that she has been pushed down a path she did not want to tread. Cabinet ministers who favour a sensible Brexit insist that she wants a positive partnership with the EU and will get a much better deal than pro-Europeans fear. The Prime Minister will set out plans for a smooth, orderly Brexit when she triggers Article 50 next Wednesday.

Tories who favour a soft Brexit believe May will have to stand up to the hardliners at some point. But she has shied away from such a confrontation, which only encourages “the ultras”, as Sir John Major describes them, to push her further towards the hardest of Brexits. May has failed to prepare her MPs – and the country – for the inevitable compromises she will have to make to secure an EU agreement.

The Brexit brigade won’t stop even when we have left the EU. Their next targets include ending the Conservative pledge to spend 0.7 per cent of gross national income on overseas aid and permanently shrinking the public sector – including, of course, the BBC. If May really aspires to dominate the political centre ground and govern for the whole country, she will have to halt the drift to the right – starting next Wednesday.