Apparently talks are going on at Westminster to finally give MPs the opportunity to vote on a series of indicative motions and see if the House of Commons can reach a consensus that a majority can coalesce around. This would form basis of a new approach to Brexit but we will only get to this point if the Withdrawal Agreement is NOT ratified. If MPs vote for MV3 then we are out by May 22nd. Reject it again and we have until April 12th to make up our mind on what to do next.
But there are still plenty of questions about MV3.
- Will it be tabled next week or will Mrs May again wait until a day or two before April 12th?
- Will Bercow allow MV3 to be tabled anyway?
- Will MPs vote to allow MV3 to be tabled, overruling Bercow?
- Will the ERG and the DUP vote for it as the last chance to be certain we will leave?
Hardliners must know if MPs coalesce around anything at all it will be a soft Brexit, softer even than the one they hate. But it still seems at the moment they will vote against it - and we should be grateful for that. The next few days and weeks will be crucial. How shaming it is that with a month to go - and that extended from just eight days - we still have little idea what Brexit means.
Apparently, at the summit in Brussels the PM had ninety minute to make her pitch but some EU 27 leaders said afterwards the more she talked the less convincing she became. Withering.
The prime minister must rue the day that she started to use the mantra 'no deal is better than a bad deal' since this is behind a lot of her present troubles. Regardless of her opinion of it, the deal is seen as a bad one by MPs on both sides of the argument. Many voters cannot understand why she simply doesn't opt for a no deal outcome. After all, this is only the logical conclusion of her mantra for the last two years isn't it?. But instead she is turning somersaults while bending over backwards to avoid a no deal Brexit. It must seem crazy - but it isn't. A no deal outcome would be disastrous and she knows it.
It had no impact in Brussels and has now blown up in her face.
And even more humiliatingly (HERE) the EU didn't believe Mrs May had a plan A that would work and no plan B to deal with it so they had to come up with one. Isn't it shaming?
Yesterday morning we learn she left the summit early and informed the other leaders by text message! She simply went over to Brussels to get the extension and as soon as she'd got it, she was off.
The official EU Council decision of the extension terms is (HERE), in other words Plan B, effectively. I think it means we will remain a member regardless of what UK law says. Changing the date in the EU (Withdrawal) Act is a technical requirement to make sure we do not fall out of compliance with EU law. So, whatever the Brexiteers and the ERG say we will not be leaving on March 29th.
Is it any wonder that Theresa May is in big trouble. Right from the start of her premiership, instead of cultivating what was always a majority in parliament for a soft Brexit she has chosen to align herself with hard Brexiteers, a minority in her own party and an even smaller one in the House of Commons. As a strategy it was bound to fail. Had she gone for the easier and obvious option (a soft Brexit) there might have been a lot of noisy criticism from the right but they would have been helpless against the moderate majority. The Irish backstop would not have been an issue.
Prospect Magazine has an article (HERE) which describes May's position like this:
"On Thursday night in a Brussels conference chamber, something happened that was so breathtaking it will define the history of post-war Britain. It was such an indictment of the state of our nation that it almost literally cannot be believed. A group of foreign powers intervened to save the British people from their own prime minister".
If you can bear it BuzzFeed (HERE) has what it calls the full story of the 'most calamitous week in Brexit yet'. Note the use of the word 'yet'. If anybody thought last week was bad wait until next week.
The petition to revoke Article 50, which is running at over 3.7 million yesterday evening, has been on the receiving end of Spiked, one of those bizarre right wing websites that is rabidly pro-Brexit. It has an article (HERE) by Brendan O'Neill, a nutjob if ever there was one, attacking it as 'petition against the people'.
"This is an explicit cry to defy the public, to thwart democracy, to disenfranchise once more those people who were enfranchised 100 years ago. It is a petition against the people".
Quite who he thinks is signing the petition I'm not sure. He says. "Celebs and comedians and luvvies have been at the forefront of promoting the petition". - presumably he thinks these elite are busy signing the petition as well. Or perhaps the people now voting against themselves. Who knows. It's Brexit isn't it?
Anyway, by the time this is posted I'll be on the coach to London, probably around Leicester Forest East and on the way to join the Put it to the People march. See you there.
