Whatever you think of the latter idea, it can’t fairly be said that, in the minds of a significant tranche of Party members, the door to it is firmly closed.
Plus: should we join a customs union which replicates the EU Customs Union? And our usual Cabinet League Table and Next Tory Leader questions.
May should not shirk from seeking an election over her manifesto pledge to leave it. But we are not there yet – not nearly.
What was sketched out yesterday, boiled down to essentials, sounds a lot like his Canada Plus Plus Plus. But no decision yet it seems on the Customs Union.
Cabinet differences on policy are resolvable within the framework that May has already set. Practical preparation is the real Achilles Heel.
For all its compromises and ambiguities, it is the only practicable means to hand of giving the province something approaching normalcy.
His first major interview returns policy to the spirit of May’s original education ideas, with new faith schools and expanded selective ones as part of the mix.
We feel a commission, a working group, an inquiry coming in – to look these inconsistencies, accidents of history and quirks, to see if some tidying-up is required.
Johnson’s speech today and the Commission’s basic take are strangely similar – Brexit points to a Canada-type settlement on alignment and divergence.
The phrase is widely attributed to Jacob Rees-Mogg. But a senior Labour politician got there first…
A brief glance at this month’s findings to date helps to explain why Tory MPs have been resisting media and some internal pressure for a leadership challenge.
If anything is put to the Commons at all before exit day, it will be a Heads of Agreement plan. The most likely consequence of its rejection would be the re-invention of transition.
The results of yesterday’s Select Committee elections weren’t at all bad for the Brexiteers – or Conservative Friends of Israel, for that matter.
P.S: Only one Tory Prime Minister in recent years was “taken down” by Tory MPs. Clue: it was neither Major nor Cameron.
It would make no sense to spurn taking control of our trade policy and leave it with the EU – in which we will no longer have a say.
