Fox has said releasing the fifty or so impact assessments would "diminish our negotiating hand" (HERE). But we've been assured we would prosper, Mrs May has said on umpteen occasions we are going to make a success of Brexit, surely impact assessments which show that is the case would strengthen our hand? Now Gina Miller (HERE) is joining calls for them to be made public on the grounds that our MPs would be voting "blind" with no idea what the result of no deal would be.
Time is running out since the lobby group The Good Law Project (HERE) gave the government fourteen days to publish the assessments or face a legal challenge and this runs out at the end of this week.
The government has a big problem on this. Does it acceded to the demand or does it again say they will not be published. If the courts rule against them or if parliament asserts itself and they do eventually, after much argument, become public and they paint a bleak picture of all the sectors, contrary to what many ministers, including Davis, Fox and Johnson have said, what will that do?
I am assuming here the assessments are not good. If they helped the government's case you can bet they would have been published immediately. They are almost certainly bad and ministers will then look as if they have been deceiving the public. They might try to suggest the assessments are wrong of course but I'm not sure this would convince anyone. There may even have to be resignations. The whole Brexit debate would be thrown open again. The impact assessments are absolutely crucial to everything and it is shameful they are not being released as a matter of course.
