Politics

Brexit hangs by a thread. The Chequers Plan has already failed. Public hostility and its one-sided nature mean that it cannot provide a durable basis for the UK's future relationship with the EU.  Only eighteen months ago, the Prime Minister was saying that Britain could not possibly stay in the EU Single Market. It would mean "not leaving the EU at all." Yet this is precisely what the Chequers Plan does, with its acknowledgment that the Single Market is built on a balance of rights and obligations and its proposal for a new framework that "holds rights and obligations in a fair and different balance." Fair and different is not Brexit.

Here is quite a good trick question. Which current Member of Parliament has voted most often against pro-EU measures? I have not done the count, but I suppose it would be natural to guess Bill Cash, who entered Parliament in 1984. In fact, it is much more likely to be Jeremy Corbyn who came into the House in 1983 and has defied his party more often on the subject than has Sir William. It is fascinating how Mr Corbyn’s tenacious Bennite Euroscepticism has been glossed over by the media. The most likely candidate, however, must be Dennis Skinner, who entered Parliament in 1970 and must be the last person still sitting there to have voted against entry in the first place.

Matthew Parris argues that the notice period for leaving the EU should be extended beyond March 2019 by agreement, as is legally possible. Is that not just prolonging the agony? One suspects that what Parris hopes is not that extending the negotiating period will produce better exit terms for Britain, but that it will prevent Brexit from happening at all. As a Remain voter in 2016, it took me 24 hours to come to terms with the fact that our side lost. Parris and co are still sulking after more than 24 months. If called on to vote in an entirely inappropriate second referendum, I would vote Brexit to preserve some semblance of democracy in this country.

With characteristic verve, former Vote Leave campaign chief Dominic Cummings has taken to his blog to brand the latest DCMS select committee report ‘fake news from the fake news committee.’ But has the high priest of fighting fake news being practising what he preaches when it comes to spreading false information? Mr S has cause for concern. Addressing the committee, he quotes the line ‘The truth? You can’t handle the truth!’ from the 90s film classic A Few Good Men, which he attributes to Tom Cruise. Clearly Cummings’ film knowledge is not up to scratch, while Cruise did star in the film, the quote itself was said by his co-star Jack Nicholson. Happily, Cummings has since issued an apology: [Pps.

Surely there is a bit of humbug in this outrage about the two remaining jihadi Beatles, Kotey and Elsheikh, and Sajid Javid’s difficult but correct decision to send them for trial in America. Suppose the grisly pair had been located a couple of years ago in Raqqa. And let’s suppose there was a Reaper drone overhead, and that British intelligence could help send a missile neatly through their windscreen. Would we provide the details — knowing that they would be killed without a chance for their lawyers to offer pleas in mitigation on account of their tough childhoods in west London? Would the British state, in these circumstances, have connived in straightforward extrajudicial killing? Too damn right we would.