We are getting to the business end of Brexit. This weekend has the air of calm before the storm as the Brexit hulk drifts towards choppier waters and lowering skies. Focus will turn to the House of Commons again on Tuesday when the PM tries to get some version of her deal approved. It seems possible it might pass subject either to the backstop being removed altogether or renegotiated so that an open border can be maintained without the need for a backstop. This is what the Graham Brady amendment is attempting to achieve.
Yesterday it emerged that Jean Claude Juncker has told Theresa May the price of renegotiating the backstop is Britain staying permanently in the customs union (HERE) which looks like a price the Brexiteers will be unwilling to pay. They want out and no backstop. It's not one or the other for them but both and making the cost of removing the backstop unacceptably high is not going to help.
The Guardian are also reporting the British Chambers of Commerce saying (HERE) that businesses are planning a mass exodus if it looks like a no deal Brexit. Let us hope this concentrates political minds.
Big decisions that will have a profound impact on the Conservative party and the nation for years to come will have to be made very soon. Something is going to give. If Brexit is delayed there will be fury and if it isn't, disaster. The leader of the House, Andrea Leadsom, surely a woman totally out of her depth, has suggested a two week delay would be 'feasible' (HERE) but I wonder what the price of that will be? It is however, the first hint of a delay - watch out for more.
The government is appealing to MPs not to seize control of the process by promising to bring a revised deal to parliament next month. But we are getting suicidally close to the edge. The government's handling of the whole Brexit process has been abysmal and is heading us into a huge constitutional crisis. The Queen has made an oblique reference (HERE) to Brexit showing how the government now fear for social cohesion in the coming weeks and ITV are reporting plans to introduce martial law (HERE) if there are civil disturbances.
One begins to worry that we have opened a Pandora's box that we will never close.
As the days tick down the pressure is ramping up. It is the PM playing chicken both with parliament and the EU. She is challenging MPs on both sides to approve the deal by dangling the threat of no deal and she is probably going to dare the EU to reject her offer of agreeing a revised Withdrawal Agreement without the backstop by shifting the blame to them for any failure to reach a settlement.
My guess is she will fail on both counts because of something known as the risky shift phenomenon. This is the theory that groups tend to make riskier decisions and are much less averse to risk since it tends to be diffused across the group and the whole blame doesn't attach to any single member. I think parliament and the EU have much higher thresholds even than the super stubborn Mrs May.
If she holds out against either her own cabinet, party, parliament or the combined will of the EU 27 it would be a very big surprise indeed. She is almost certainly incapable of having her name alone on the wasting of a huge chunk of British industry in a blow that even Mrs Thatcher wouldn't have contemplated.
But buckle up, the next few weeks are not going to be pleasant.
