MV3 is coming to parliament later today - although it will appear in disguise, perhaps in the hope that MPs accidentally vote for it not realising what it is. It will not apparently be labelled 'meaningful' vote MV3. It's a last gasp s**t or bust attempt by Mrs May to get the Withdrawal Agreement approved. It won't include the political declaration which appears to be an acceptance that the DUP and some ERG members are never going to be persuaded to vote for her deal with the backstop. It seems to be the case that Mrs May now thinks half a deal is better than no deal at all.
She is therefore apparently trying to reach out to Labour rebels, something she might have thought about before, since having no majority means she always needed near unanimity on Europe in Tory ranks, something they haven't managed in my lifetime and probably ever.
The DUP have indeed confirmed they won't support the deal (HERE), which I assume means Jacob Rees-Mogg won't support it either since his vote was contingent on the DUP being happy. For these people it's the backstop, which is absolutely central to the WA, and it isn't going to be removed or replaced so the government are looking at others who are happy with the backstop but not about other aspects. Hence the splitting of the WA and the ditching of the political declaration - for the moment.
It also allows Bercow to pronounce that it is indeed a substantially different motion. It is like the bombsite car dealer, after you rejected a car he was trying to sell you, coming back with the same vehicle minus the engine.
I always thought Labour were complaining that the PD was too vague, amounting to a blind Brexit so dropping it completely does not appear to be the wisest move. Last night Kier Starmer said without the PD the Withdrawal Agreement alone would be the blindest of blind Brexits and Labour will not vote for it (HERE).
There are also legal issues since apparently section 13 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 says that before ratification of the Withdrawal Agreement can happen, both it and the Political Declaration must be approved by the House of Commons (HERE). So the government will have to change the Act, and have it receive Royal Assent before the change becomes lawful so it's not going to be easy to do anyway.
Nick Watt on Newsnight last night (HERE about 6:30 seconds in) spoke to an unnamed cabinet minister and asked him why the PM was doing it. He said he didn't know (but using more Anglo Saxon language - warning) and according to Watt, added:
"I'm past caring. It's like the living dead in here. Theresa May is the sole architect of this mess. It is her inability to engage in the most basic human interactions that brought us here. Cabinet has totally broken down. Ministers say their bit, she gives nothing away. One side thinks X will happen, the other side think Y will happen and the Prime Minister decides on Z"
These are the people governing us at this moment of profound national crisis. Terrifying isn't it.
Some are suspicious that the government is trying something devious and smell a trap, according to Sky News (HERE). If it is some clever ruse to get the deal over the line I'm certain it will fail like all the earlier efforts from a government that has become a by-word for incompetence.
I expect the half deal to be voted down again this evening, making a long delay to Brexit a certainty and if so, it would not surprise me at all if she stood down in April. It will be the final humiliation of a prime minister who has been by a significant measure the worst we have ever had.
By the way, did anyone see the BBC 10 o'clock news last night? The item about Weston-Super-Mare had a local man telling the nation how disappointed he was that we wouldn't be leaving the EU. He hadn't voted in recent general elections but took the trouble to vote leave in the 2016 referendum and now feels 'disenfranchised'. He thought at 11 pm tonight there would be the beginning of a 'new era'.
He honestly expected schools to perform better, the police to perform better and for pressure on the NHS to be lifted without all the foreigners coming in. How he thought the EU was stopping us doing these things wasn't clear. To be fair, he said he didn't blame the EU but our own politicians for letting things happen - in which case why leave the EU? It made no sense.
It would be easy to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it but he is likely to be far more disappointed in a few years (assuming we do actually leave) when everything that he hoped would get better has actually got worse. This is the great betrayal.
