We won’t have a hard Brexit. There aren’t enough MPs to back it | Martin Kettle

The issue need not bring down Theresa May’s government, but Jacob Rees-Mogg’s sabre-rattling is a bluff she will have to call

With the wonderful benefit of hindsight, the great moments of political choice can take on a deceptive inevitability. Yet in real time, these moments that make or break governments – such as Sir Robert Peel’s repeal of the corn laws, which split the Tories for a generation – are more typically the hard-fought climax of processes that follow a circuitous and up-and-down path, with the key decision put off until it is inescapable.

The moment of decision for Theresa May over Brexit is following this pattern too. The route has meandered for nearly two years through negotiations, summits, law-making and elections; this week’s English elections will be part of the context too. The climax has been long predicted and frequently postponed. To judge by what Downing Street said this week, as ministers prepared for Wednesday’s cabinet committee on customs arrangements with the EU, it may well be pushed back yet again by a few weeks. Yet the moment is nearing all the same.

Related: The Guardian view on Brexit and the Irish border: alchemy fails again | Editorial

EU members (plus Turkey, Andorra, Monaco and San Marino) trade without customs duties, taxes or tariffs between themselves, and charge the same tariffs on imports from outside the EU. Customs union members cannot negotiate their own trade deals outside the EU, which is why leaving it – while hopefully negotiating a bespoke arrangement – has been one of the government’s Brexit goals. See our full Brexit phrasebook.

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