The big E.U. summit is over, and Mrs May next week will be able to resume her normal Sunday churchgoing routine. Over the next two weeks she will try to sell her Brexit deal to the public, hoping they will compel MPs to fall into line and stop ‘bickering’ as one rightwing newspaper put it (reflecting their respect for democratic debate). I wonder if this will be the fortnight when the yellow press goes into full-on ‘no deal’ mode. They can’t be happy with the bodge May has engineered in cahoots with those conniving foreigners. A deal so bad we’ll have to stump up £39 billion for it – I’d like to see a breakdown of how that money is to be spent.
I suppose the biggest impediment to a second referendum will be sheer Brexit fatigue. It’s hard to see how the position we now find ourselves in could be any more inconclusive. Any hopes it will be all over before Christmas are likely to be dashed. This looks like the 21st century equivalent of the First World War, with huge sacrifices made for little gain and no end in sight. Of course I am biased, but Labour’s demand for a general election makes sense. If May can’t get her flagship deal through Parliament, then she doesn’t deserve to stay on as Prime Minister. This is too central to her authority. Most pro-Brexit Tories (and DUP ejits) however would vote to keep her on, fearful of precipitating their own demise. So she could limp on, and that would definitely result in no deal. The last thing on her mind is another general election. No deal would then be presented as a triumph, and she would commence rebuilding her authority at least with the Brexit supporting section of the public. She could be with us until 2022 and beyond. The Brexiteers only have to hope that the economy doesn’t collapse in the meantime. P.S. It’s time for a vote of no confidence in BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg. Her utterly uninformative reporting yesterday from Brussels was excruciating. As if even a hermit didn’t know that yesterday’s summit was the culmination of two fraught years’ of negotiating, or that May now faces the biggest test of her political career. Her commentary is a combination of political cliché and yesterday’s weather forecast. Particularly embarrassing when compared to Europe correspondent Katya Adler, who at least seems to pass on information you haven’t heard before. Crap reporting surely adds to Brexit fatigue.
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