Mrs May is due on the BBC’s Marr Show this morning, or so reports The Scottish Herald (HERE), where she is expected to put more pressure on recalcitrant MPs from her own party by threatening either to leave without a deal or to cancel Brexit altogether. It should be interesting.
Pointedly, The Herald say:
Pointedly, The Herald say:
".. she will talk up her Brexit Plan, raise fears of what would happen if colleagues did not support it and highlight the preparations Whitehall is making for a no-deal; a no-deal, incidentally, that taxpayers are spending £4 billion on, that Cabinet ministers have said would never happen and, if it did, would be “catastrophic” for Britain’s economy and that several of them would resign over".
As to which option she goes for when colleagues ignore her threats, Robert Peston (HERE) claims that nobody, not even cabinet ministers or her closest aides and officials know what she intends to do. She is a blank page. Peston reports:
"Well, amazingly, no one around her - not her ministers, not her officials - seem to know. Why not? "She won’t tell us," says a minister".
Although the Telegraph are suggesting this morning another delay to the vote (HERE) she will eventually have to choose no deal or no Brexit, since her own deal is not going to pass. The DUP are opposed to it and so is Sir Bill Cash who writes, again in the Telegraph (HERE) that:
"Theresa May's monstrous Brexit deal would leave Britain at the mercy of its competitors". He doesn't sound too pleased with it.
The Telegraph also reported in the week (HERE) on a YouGov survey of Tory party members, and the 76% majority who think no deal is better than their own PM's deal. This is reported as if Conservative members are somehow gifted with extraordinary powers and can divine the future better than the rest of us. In my experience they are nothing of the kind. Usually, they are elderly with extreme authoritarian tendencies and not much more.
"Theresa May's monstrous Brexit deal would leave Britain at the mercy of its competitors". He doesn't sound too pleased with it.
The Telegraph also reported in the week (HERE) on a YouGov survey of Tory party members, and the 76% majority who think no deal is better than their own PM's deal. This is reported as if Conservative members are somehow gifted with extraordinary powers and can divine the future better than the rest of us. In my experience they are nothing of the kind. Usually, they are elderly with extreme authoritarian tendencies and not much more.
The party membership is probably less than 100,000 and hardly representative of the nation as a whole and very few, if any at all, are experts on economic matters.
"We are constantly told that a no-deal Brexit is a doomsday scenario so obviously bad for Britain that only an ideological fringe wants it and everyone else is opposed to it. This is just not true. According to a new poll, 76 per cent of Tory members believe the risks of a no-deal Brexit are exaggerated and 57 per cent think it would be better than Theresa May’s plan.
"The 57 per cent would likely argue that, while a no-deal outcome carries profound risks and could be traumatic in the short-term, this would be mitigated by better, bolder planning and real economic reform. No-deal preparations are underway, but if there is an air of panic then it is because they have come so late and are motivated..."
"We are constantly told that a no-deal Brexit is a doomsday scenario so obviously bad for Britain that only an ideological fringe wants it and everyone else is opposed to it. This is just not true. According to a new poll, 76 per cent of Tory members believe the risks of a no-deal Brexit are exaggerated and 57 per cent think it would be better than Theresa May’s plan.
"The 57 per cent would likely argue that, while a no-deal outcome carries profound risks and could be traumatic in the short-term, this would be mitigated by better, bolder planning and real economic reform. No-deal preparations are underway, but if there is an air of panic then it is because they have come so late and are motivated..."
I tend to put my faith in the vast majority of credible economists who think no deal would seriously damage the economy but the truth is we would be entering a totally unknown and unknowable scenario. Nobody knows for sure how we might cope. The risks might be exaggerated but they might also be understated. No deal represents a considerable risk. It's a gamble with the odds stacked against you. If you win, all you get is the status quo, the equivalent of your money back, but lose and you're destroying the livelihoods of your fellow citizens and adding billions to your nation's debt for years.
Finally, according to The Independent (HERE) the EU are offering no comfort to Mrs May that any legally binding changes to the Withdrawal Agreement will be offered.
It is make-up-your-mind time. No deal or no Brexit? Mrs May the choice is yours.
