James Forsyth James Forsyth

From Dante’s first circle of hell to Black Wednesday, this week’s Cabinet meeting

If last week’s Cabinet was a unified affair with everyone agreeing about the problems with the EU’s version of the backstop, today’s was not. On the one hand, you had Geoffrey Cox warning that the backstop would be like being stuck in Dante’s first circle of hell. On the other, you had David Lidington, the effective deputy Prime Minister, telling ministers that he was the only one who had been an MP on Black Wednesday and they couldn’t have that level of chaos again, which—by implication—there would be with no deal.

I understand that Jeremy Hunt spoke very forcefully about how the UK couldn’t be stuck in an indefinite backstop and that the EU mustn’t be able to unilaterally stop this country from leaving it. Sajid Javid said similar things and also criticised the messaging around the possible extension of the so-called ‘implementation period’.

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