It’s not just the government who have been caught by surprise at Bercow’s vote announcement yesterday, it raised eyebrows in Germany too. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted this morning ‘I must confess I was not familiar with the rules of order of the British parliament from the 17th century’. Of course, Mr S, a well known expert on Jacobean constitutional conventions, saw it coming a mile off.
But Mr S can’t help wondering how different the Withdrawal Agreement could have been had EU leaders known that without, in the Speaker’s words, ‘substantial’ changes, the deal wouldn’t be voted on at all.
Sadly this might be the last straw for the German Chancellor, who seems to have given up having any policy towards the UK:
‘I am as of now unable to say what my position will be on Thursday because it depends on what Theresa May presents, what the situation looks like, (and) what may still happen in parliament,’ she said.
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