Tales of MPs backing bills because of threats are largely apocryphal and certainly won’t work in this case
Between now and 11 December reports on Theresa May’s chances of success and survival will contain almost casual asides about near-criminal behaviour in the House of Commons. Government whips – desperate to win the vote that endorses the prime minister’s Brexit deal – will be said to resort to bribery, bullying and blackmail. Some stories will be exaggerations. Others will be pure inventions – peddled by the whips themselves to enhance their reputation as the stormtroopers of parliamentary politics. Tales of female MPs reduced to tears in the tea room will help to obscure the inconvenient, though undeniable, fact that, as the Brexit crisis developed, the whips failed to fulfil their most important duty – the collection of intelligence, not the enforcement of discipline.
Had the Tory whips been the eyes and ears of the government, they would have known, within days of news of the Chequers proposals reaching Westminster, that May’s Brexit deal was certain to be rejected by the House of Common, and then the prime minister would have been given time to change course.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2KMbcxe
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