Robert Peston

Our Brexit fate is in the hands of France’s president Macron – which is “not a wholly comfortable state of affairs,” in the euphemistic words of a minister. What this minister means is the Prime Minister and her close colleagues are a long way from being convinced Macron will underwrite EU president Donald Tusk’s proposal

Pretty much everyone I meet says they want all the Brexit uncertainty to end, one way or another. But that is now impossible: even agreement – which seems remote – on some version of the PM’s deal to take us out of the EU would only be a beginning of a sort, not an end,

There has been considerable and widespread cynicism about the talks between the Government and Labour about a compromise that could break the Brexit deadlock. But those close to the negotiations, led today by David Lidington and Keir Starmer, believe there is at last a “plan with a chance,” of securing a positive vote from MPs

The magnitude of the gulf between the cabinet and perhaps a majority of Tory MPs over how to deliver Brexit was on display like an oozing wound on my show last night. The Chancellor was his normal phlegmatic, unsugaring self when revealing the government is reconciled to a long Brexit delay till at least the end

It is hard to overstate the magnitude of what happened in Cabinet today – because the prime minister and her senior ministers concluded over a record-breaking seven-and-a-half hours that Brexit was too hard for them to deliver on their own and they would now seek to enlist Jeremy Corbyn and Labour in finding a solution.

Labour has not tabled a motion for today’s indicative votes on a way through the Brexit mess – which feels like an important moment, perhaps because it has recognised that its proprietary version of Brexit is dead and its role instead is to work with all MPs to identify a deliverable alternative (which could be

Some allies of the prime minister are desperate for a majority of MPs to back Ken Clarke’s motion to keep the UK in the customs union, at the close of round two of the Letwin process of the Commons bossing the government, Monday night. Yes you heard me right. They want MPs to vote for

Maybe I am simply in the thrall of the powerful emotions manifested by MPs in their debate on Friday, but their rejection of the Withdrawal Agreement just now feels the most significant event to date on the long and tortuous road to Brexit or revocation. Because the EU just a week ago bent its rules

Truthfully I don’t really understand why the prime minister is holding a vote tomorrow to approve the Withdrawal Agreement she negotiated with the EU – other than the symbolism of showing that on the day she originally set as Brexit day, 29 March 2019, she is still working hard to extricate the UK from the

Here is the measure of today’s events in Parliament: probably the least important question is whether the PM names her own departure date when she sees a rowdy meeting of Tory MPs at 5pm under the umbrella of the 1922 Committee. This is not to trivialise whether or not she confirms she would stand down on May

This matters. I am told that the cabinet secretary Mark Sedwill and the attorney general Geoffrey Cox informed Cabinet that if at the end of the Letwin process MPs pass a motion mandating the PM to pursue a new route through the Brexit mess – perhaps a referendum, or membership of the customs union, or

A point of significant tension at this morning’s cabinet will be over whether the PM is to allow her ministers and MPs to vote with their consciences on the indicative votes today and tomorrow to find any Brexit – or no-Brexit plan – that a majority of MPs can support AND on the statutory instrument