
Henry Newman: Cummings understands the need to drastically reform Whitehall
It’s not an optional extra – it’s crucial to delivering an effective Brexit and making the most of the opportunities outside the EU.
It’s not an optional extra – it’s crucial to delivering an effective Brexit and making the most of the opportunities outside the EU.
There are four possible approaches he could take on Brexit. Not all of them lead to success.
He will inherit a precarious Parliamentary position, and time for agreement is growing very short.
There are real, viable answers to this sticky problem. But rebuilding trust may be as hard as resolving technical questions.
Ken Clarke summed it up recently when he argued that there was now no chance of Britain being a stable member of the EU.
A basic problem remains unaltered – that there is no Commons majority for a No Deal Brexit. This point has been well made by Ann Widdecombe.
It may be unpalatable, but there’s no point arguing about retaining customs union membership if we can’t get out of the EU in the first place.
Now, the best option for the Prime Minister is to try to work with Labour. Unless, of course, her backbench critics rethink.
Now more than ever, it’s Brussels and not the Government which is in the driving seat – and we don’t know which way it will turn.
If they reject the Withdrawal Agreement a third time, a deeply divided Opposition could yet get the credit for a soft departure.
Critics of the deal need to compromise and accept the actual choices on offer. Refusal to do so risks an outcome far worse, or no Brexit at all.
The final paragraph of Cox’s advice notes that in some circumstances the UK could suspend or exit the backstop under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.
It is not always given a fair assessment, particularly against the other options actually available. Those open to persuasion should look at the facts before it’s too late.
If her revised plan fails, the most likely outcomes are an even softer Brexit or a second referendum.
At least four Tory MPs have apparently been placed on defection watch including Anna Soubry, Sarah Wollaston and Richard Harrington.