Brexit

Andrea Jenkyns is regarded by many Tory MPs as a Brexit champion – after the Conservative MP for Morley pre-emptively quit last month as a PPS to fight for Brexit. Since then Jenkyns has become one of the loudest voices calling for a new tack from No 10 in the negotiations. However, Mr S can't help but wonder whether Jenkyn's latest intervention didn't land quite as she had intended. In an interview with the Telegraph, the Tory MP attempts to criticise the Prime Minister for not being a true Brexiteer – not because she's a Remainer but because her passion is... 'what's workable' 'It is time for her to go. I don't think she has passion for either Remain or Brexit, I think she has a passion for what's workable.

When an influential centre-right Tory, who has served in May's cabinet, says that the prime ministers' Brexit plan is the "worst of both worlds" and a "fudge I cannot support", it is clear beyond doubt that the PM's most important policy is in trouble. For Justine Greening, the proposal to follow EU rules for the production and consumption of goods and food, and to collect tariffs for the EU, is neither properly leaving the EU or a rational "softer" Brexit. What she says she fears, in an article for the Times, is parliament rejecting May's plan, but finding it completely impossible to force through a more satisfactory relationship with the EU. So - and this is something of a shock - she has come round to the idea that there should be a further referendum.

Theresa May: People voted from the heart, but I must be hard-headed After an outbreak of discontent in the Conservative party over her Chequers Brexit plan, the Prime Minister took to the Andrew Marr Show to defend her policy. The plan led to David Davis and Boris Johnson quitting the cabinet, and there are rumours that more ministers could follow in the coming days. There is also the possibility that May could face a vote of no confidence in her leadership at any point. Marr asked her if the Chequers Agreement was letting her party and the country down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9Rp6DcB59I AM: There are an awful lot of Conservatives...

Theresa May appeared on the Andrew Marr sofa with her premiership at its most vulnerable point since the disastrous snap election. After a week of frontbench resignations, a US Presidential visit that resulted in humiliation, a growing eurosceptic rebellion and a downturn in the polls, May belatedly tried to sell her Brexit blueprint to the public. The Prime Minister began by attempting some honesty – she told Marr that she did accept that the position agreed at Chequers last Friday was different to what was set out in her Lancaster House speech. However, she insisted that the change was minimal and that competitive free trade deals were still possible – she refused to explicitly say that the common rulebook would make trade deals harder to forge.

If Theresa May gets a Brexit deal and it can’t get through parliament, then we are heading towards the most dangerous political crisis in living memory, I say in The Sun this morning. For I very much doubt that the 80 percent of MPs who are opposed to no deal, would let Britain leave without an agreement. But disregarding the result of the referendum—either by abandoning Brexit or leaving only to make Britain, effectively, a non-voting member of the EU—would cause a democratic shock. 17.4 million voters would be, understandably, furious about having their vote ignored. So, what can Mrs May do to avert this disaster? Well, I think there are three things she should do. First, she should start treating voters and her own MPs like adults.

Why do the British turn to the Germans in their moments of European trouble? It never works. When Jacques Delors conceived his single currency plans, Mrs Thatcher over-relied on Karl Otto Pöhl at the Bundesbank to squash them. Dr Pöhl preferred to side with Helmut Kohl. When Britain was struggling to stay in the ERM in the late summer of 1992, the Major government put faith in what they thought were German promises to help them out. These failed to materialise. When David Cameron sought a new EU deal which would win him the 2016 referendum, he placed his greatest hopes in Angela Merkel, who offered him concessions so feeble that even he quickly gave up trying to sell them. Last week, Mrs May flew to Berlin.