THE TORY PARTY IS HEADED FOR A SPLIT

EU ambassadors were told yesterday, after a meeting between UK and EU negotiators, that Boris Johnson has 'no intention' to negotiate and therefore, the British government's 'central scenario' is now to leave without a deal. To the extent that we want to appear resolute in our belief that no deal is better than a bad deal, the last two weeks has been a success for Johnson's strategy.  Whether this will prompt the EU to change tack is quite another matter.

BRECON AND HOW NOT TO WIN FRIENDS IN IRELAND

First, the Brecon and Radnorshire result overnight was a welcome fillip to remainers. The LibDem win, overturning a Tory majority of 8,000 to win by 1425 votes was absolutely magnificent. Labour's vote went DOWN by 12% and the Tories' by 9.6%.  And if we were to use the by-election as a poll on Brexit the pro-Brexit parties (Conservative, UKIP and TBP) collectively received 50.14% (if I ignore the Monster Raving Loony party's 1%).  In the referendum Leave won by 53.7% so the constituency has turned against Brexit by a bit less than the national swing we see elsewhere. But nonetheless, all good news.

BRECON & RADNORSHIRE AND TORY ELECTORAL CHANCES

Polls opened this morning for the Brecon and Radnorshire by election and the result should tell us a lot about the Johnson effect as well as the Brexit party's support and local thinking on a no deal Brexit. The LibDems have high hopes but this report suggests it may not be a cinch. However, the pro Brexit vote is likely to be split between the Tories and Farage's mob and it would be a surprise if either of them won.  We will know the result tomorrow morning.

THE NEXT PRIME MINISTER WILL BE TESTED LIKE NO OTHER

If we go back to autumn 2016, just before the Tory Party Conference, Mrs May had been coming under pressure to trigger Article 50.  David Davis himself had written in July on the assumption we would be out by the end of 2018. The grassroots as well as some politicians were becoming restive at the apparent inertia.  Hence she committed to firing the starting gun (HERE) before the end of March 2017. It was probably the maximum time she thought she could give herself to get a plan ready. She eventually managed it with 48 hours to spare. We now know there was no agreed plan or even a realistic objective.  It was this total ignorance in the Tory party about how difficult the process would be which led directly to May pulling the trigger without knowing where we would end up.

FARAGE - THE VOICE OF MODERATION. REALLY?

You begin to get a sense of the rising panic in pro-Brexit ranks. I think there is a widespread acceptance that the deal is not going to be ratified by this parliament and the new PM, for all the bluster, is not going to get the EU to renegotiate the Withdrawal Agreement. Against this backdrop, David Scullion, deputy editor at Brexit Central (HERE) writes that a no deal Brexit is the only way to 'save the Conservative party'

THE GOVERNMENT STRATEGY REVEALED

Robert Peston (HERE) has got hold of a leaked memo from someone in government setting out what Mrs May hoped to be able to put to the House of Commons in a series of indicative votes to find out what a majority of MPs would support. There are five points. Two have multiple options that would be narrowed down in a series of votes with the least popular being eliminated until only one option was left.  Since the talks have broken down without an agreement it's not clear what will now happen but the next step was always some sort of parliamentary process so she may still try some more indicative votes.

THE TORIES - OUT OF THE FRYING PAN INTO THE FIRE

I've been away for a few days in Wales and was amazed to find there are still places in the UK where you can't actually get broadband or a 'phone line or a mobile signal!  Fortunately, being the dog days of Brexit nothing much happened.  All that changed yesterday.

Firstly, Theresa May finally agreed to agree a timetable for her to step down as Tory leader. Like Brexit, her departure is being arranged at a speed that makes glacier movement seem meteoric. There is no agreement, only an agreement to reach one.  What is it about Mrs May? She leaves grown men either in tears or talking of slashing their wrists. Talks go in ever increasing circles before disappearing into infinity.

TORIES GET A DRUBBING

I read last week that the Conservatives expected to lose between 400 - 800 councillors in yesterday's local elections. There is usually an element of expectation management in these forecasts, where the parties think of the worst possible results and then add a bit more so that afterwards they can say it wasn't as bad as they thought it might be. Presumably after feedback from those councillors who dared to campaign and fearing they had perhaps not been pessimistic enough, they later revised the figure to 500 - 1000 councillors who might go. In fact, they should have been a lot more pessimistic because they actually lost 1334!  It was absolutely dire.

CONSERVATIVE PARTY TROUBLES CONTINUE TO GROW

The Tories are getting deeper in the mire. They are in for a certain drubbing in this week's local council elections, set to lose between 400 and 800 seats with many of their supporters opting for Farage's Brexit party.  Paul Goodman makes an appeal (HERE) to readers of the Conservative Home website not to punish local councillors for the government's Brexit problems at national level. I fear it will make no difference judging by the 327 responses, none of which seem to agree with him. They are intent on sending a clear message to Mrs May about the failure to deliver Brexit.

DIRE POLLING FOR THE TORIES

Camilla Tominey is nearly hysterical in The Telegraph this morning (HERE) writing breathlessly about how bad the Tories are going to do in the European elections (if we get to them) or in a general election (assuming Theresa May is having suicidal thoughts). The voters are apparently set to 'punish' the Conservative party for NOT delivering Brexit. Oddly, they are supposed to be in danger of losing 48 seats, while Labour, also guilty of not delivering Brexit, is set to gain 61 seats! Not sure how that works.

CONSERVATIVE ASSOCIATIONS - BREEDING GROUNDS OF BREXIT

Brexit has certainly given us some amazing things. Division, Chaos, ineptitude, mendacity and incompetence to name just a few. The whole disastrous thing was carefully nurtured for thirty or forty years in small, dusty Conservative Associations, bodies made up of ordinary, swivel eyed right-wing nutters who spent years keeping alive half-forgotten dreams of empire while suffering the occasional touch of dementia. They were the breeding grounds for Brexit.

TORIES NOW DOING THE SPLITS

Well, the looming Tory party split has loomed. But before getting to that, can I tell you the Article 50 Challenge's legal team will appear in The Court of Appeal later this morning, arguing the referendum was not free or fair after two Electoral Commission reports found that the referendum campaign had been dogged by illegality and corruption and it was therefore unconstitutional. The case is being live streamed on YouTube from 10:00am and you can see it HERE.

ENGLISH NATIONALISM IS BEHIND BREXIT

Fintan O'Toole, in his book, Heroic Failure: Brexit, the politics of pain, attributes much of the thinking behind Brexit to English nationalism and he produces some interesting statistics to back up his claim. The 1999 devolution settlement and the West Lothian question caused a lot of irritation and resentment among the English that somehow they were being denied their own parliament, and Scottish MPs voting on purely English matters only seemed to rub salt into the sound.

TORY PARTY SPLIT GETS CLOSER

The Telegraph had a portentous headline above an article last Saturday: 'Tories on brink: Historic split looms as Brexiteers and Remainers threaten to torpedo government' (HERE).  Edward Malnick, the Sunday Political Editor had written a breathless piece about all the issues raging inside the party that are coming to a head this week. However, you search in vain for any solid evidence that the party is going to split anytime soon.

PROFESSOR JONATHAN CLARK

Jonathan Clark is apparently a professor, one of those clever people that you have almost certainly never heard of who don't actually know or understand anything. In fact if I was advising him I would suggest he relinquish his professorship and start again in primary school. He has written a piece for Conservative Home HERE about Brexit and Mrs May, whom he compares unfavourably with Neville Chamberlain, and believes leaving in March on WTO terms is the 'best outcome of all'. 

THE BIG REVEAL IS COMING - We may soon get to know what Brexit means

In the weeks and months after the referendum there was much speculation about what Brexit actually meant - apart from Brexit that is. Would it be a hard or soft one? It was as if we were talking about a particularly complicated boiled egg. The result of the vote in June was very close and many people were still in shock. Some didn't even think it would actually happen. I naively put my name to the petition for a second vote.  October came, and in her first conference speech as party leader, Theresa May surprised us all:

THE CABINET FARCE GOES ON

The cabinet seem to working up to a revolt according to The Sunday Times (HERE) where a Tim Shipman article has the title: Key ministers warn Theresa May against ‘EU colony’ status. She has apparently been told her tactics risk destroying the government (we can but hope). Shipman claims, "at least five cabinet ministers have privately warned Theresa May in the past week not to sign up to a Brexit plan they fear will leave Britain in perpetual “colony” status with the EU".

MAY'S PERIL IS ALSO OUR PERIL

Sky News (HERE) say Theresa May is in a perilous bind on Brexit. This is quite an understatement. But she has only one person to blame for her predicament and that is herself. Nobody forced her to take so many options off the table so early and paint so many red lines. Nobody forced her to trigger Article 50 when she did. Nobody forced her to call an election or go into an alliance with the DUP when her majority disappeared. All those decisions are coming back to haunt her.

THE TORY TITANIC FACES TWO ICEBERGS

David Davis has written to Tory MPs warning the party (actually the warning is aimed at Theresa May but he doesn't say so) that they face "dire electoral consequences" if they continue with the Chequers plan (HERE). He says it won't deliver any of the benefits of Brexit. We keep hearing about these mysterious "benefits" or sometimes "opportunities" of Brexit. Does anybody know what they actually are? All we get is a lot of nebulous soundbites about trade deals or sovereignty. Meanwhile, all serious economist, the CBI, the BCC, the EEF, the Food and Drink Federation, the SMMT and just about everybody else, produces much solid evidence that there are no benefits to be had from Brexit only self harm.

THE TORY SPLIT EDGES CLOSER

The Conservative party must split soon. That's the only conclusion you can reach from the intervention by Steve Baker, the former DEXEU minister who resigned along with David Davis at the beginning of July, and is now saying that 80 Conservative MPs are prepared to vote against the Chequers plan (HERE).  I have written before about this problem which threatens to blow Brexit apart in the next six months (HERE), (HERE) and (HERE).