Don't be fooled by Corbyn's ‘no deal off the table’ demands – he knows May is powerless to concede

Jeremy Corbyn has insisted that, unlike the other party leaders, he won’t accept Theresa May’s invitation to private talks to try to find a consensus way forward, not until she agrees to “take no deal off the table”.

This move purports to paint Corbyn as the responsible agent in the negotiations, insisting that the prime minister put an end to the damaging effects on confidence associated with the fear of a no-deal Brexit.

The move highlights the fact that a significant wing in the Conservative Party, the so-called European Research Group – a moniker as distinct from research on Europe as would be a football hooligan gang calling itself a “Soccer Research Group” – positively embraces no deal, and that May is not yet ready to part company with them.

But Corbyn’s insistence on these conditions for talks is disingenuous.

It is not in Theresa May’s power alone to “take no deal off the table”. Absent parliamentary consensus to legislate an alternative, the UK will leave the EU without a deal on 29 March.

This state of affairs exists in part because the Labour leadership itself whipped MPs to vote to trigger the Article 50 EU exit process in the first place, back in 2017. We can therefore, in a sense, take Corbyn to be asking the prime minister to “please reverse the putting on the table of no deal that Labour MPs collaborated in”.

One way to “take no deal off the table” would be for parliament to legislate to revoke Article 50, ending the withdrawal process. It seems that following the Wightman rulings at the European Court of Justice this can be done unilaterally by the UK, without consent from the other EU members.

Another way to avoid a no-deal exit would be to legislate to authorise the UK government to ask the EU27 for an extension of the Article 50 process, perhaps to allow for the holding of a second referendum, on Theresa May’s deal or some modification to it.

Revocation or extension of Article 50 are obviously not in Theresa May’s purview. Both are likely to require Labour MPs to support it. Extension needs the agreement of the EU. For those that understand this, there is the implication that Corbyn would support revocation, extension, perhaps a second referendum. But he won’t state these things explicitly. And probably for a reason – because he doesn’t support these courses of action yet, or at least doesn’t yet feel able to take the political risk of alienating the Leave wing of his voter coalition or of his own MPs.

So while his demands seek to paint May as the one retaining no deal as an option for reasons of political coalition triangulation – no doubt a pretty accurate characterisation – Corbyn reveals himself to be making the same calculation.

The prime minister responded to Corbyn’s demands, subsequently set out in an open letter, claiming that it was “impossible” to rule out no deal.

This is considerably economical with the truth. It is impossible for her alone to rule out no deal, but it is not impossible for parliament to rule it out. Perhaps 120 or so Tory MPs would refuse to rule out no deal, either because they worry it would imply a soft or much delayed Brexit, or they actually want no deal, or to cement the deposing of May. But the rest of parliament might well support one of the routes sketched above to avoiding it.

The reality is that both leaders straddle fractious coalitions of Leave and Remain voters and MPs and are reluctant to express support for actions that could rule out no deal. And both are struggling to gain what political advantage they can from the Brexit crisis. May exploits the standoff to portray Corbyn as refusing to assist in the process of governing, and to keep her right wing onside. Corbyn seeks to have the May government own the crisis and its negative effects for as long as possible.

Both individuals are close to the end of their respective careers, so it might have been hoped that they put the national interest more front and centre.

But both are holding the ambitions of their successors dear. May does not want to go down in history as the leader that split the Conservatives in two; and Corbyn does not want to scupper the chance of the first overtly socialist government in more than a generation.

This is what is keeping no deal “on the table”.

Tony Yates is a former professor of economics at Birmingham University and former Bank of England employee