The prime minister’s manoeuvring is about stifling – rather than giving voice to – antagonisms in her party. The same can be said of Labour
The government of Theresa May has survived another parliamentary cliffhanger, with a vote that threatened a cabinet walkout almost certainly shelved. She remains in office – to procrastinate another day. The prime minister did so by admitting she has a plan B if her deal to leave the European Union does not win Commons support in a meaningful vote before 12 March. Mrs May’s strategy is now to say that if her deal is defeated she will offer MPs something she has so far refused to countenance: asking the EU to extend the deadline set by the article 50 process of leaving the bloc by a couple of months. She also told MPs that the United Kingdom “will only leave without a deal on 29 March if there is explicit consent in this House”.
Mrs May does not want to extend the Brexit talks. What is not clear, and is an act of political irresponsibility, is whether she would vote against a no-deal Brexit – which would inflict serious damage to the economy but appeals to the fanatics in her party. The prime minister seems to think that by extending article 50 she can offer MPs a choice at the end of June that they would have already rejected: between a version of her Brexit deal and no deal. Mrs May is treating high office as if it were a battering ram, using it to hammer again and again at her opponents until they crack. She says she wants her government to “implement” the 2016 Brexit poll “in a way that commands the support of this House”. MPs, however, have yet to coalesce in a large enough group around a single plan. Parliamentarians are not coming together, they are coming apart.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2TaTxWP
via
0 Comments