He talks Brady, Norway, prorogation, and postponing Article 50, and explains why the ERG is “not a fourth party”. Plus: does the Queen listen to the Moggcast?
Where Farage, Johnson and Paterson once praised the Norway option, it is now denounced as apostasy.
The only way of ruling it out is to change the table itself: in other words, to abandon Brexit, or prepare to – as Remainers should admit.
It amounts to wishful thinking, not a workable, sustainable answer. And it’s not as easy to implement as some of its advocates make out.
Today, May is swinging towards her Party’s leavers. The logic of the Chancellor’s position, and that of his allies, is to block her – or try to.
The closer the prospect of it gets, the more some people warm to it – as the BBC’s Question Time suggested this week.
We also need to examine a ‘no deal transition period’ – i.e: a payment for a period of time to enable both the UK and the EU to adjust to the changes ahead of us.
Strangely but truly, the best way of helping the Prime Minister is to send her back to Brussels to win concessions on the backstop.
We count four so far from our list of 109 who have changed their minds – and all of them were only “probables”.
Supporting the deal would also prevent several other things – such as the possibibility of a truly socialist government taking over.
The conventional wisdom is: weak Prime Minister, strong Cabinet. But what we see is: weak Prime Minister, weak Cabinet.
If May’s deal goes down, three words from John Kerr last year will highlight a choice for this new one.
We want to learn from what other Parliaments have done when faced with difficult choices. Such an assembly would report back within ten weeks.