Failure. A failure of politics, a failure of courage. MPs have failed over Brexit, time and time again. Worse, many MPs fail to realise how badly they’re failing, the harm they are doing. This isn’t true of everyone in the Commons. There are still some heroes. Nick Boles is one.
His cross-party Common Market 2.0 plan – a Norwegian model of Brexit – is not yet dead but has been grievously wounded. It was attacked from both sides. The hard Brexiteers said it wasn’t hard enough, even though it’s what many of them promised or wanted before the referendum. The People’s Vote campaign also helped to destroy it, and for the same reasons: it didn’t meet their purity test – even though they had promised before the referendum to respect and enact a Leave vote.
Well, when you destroy the centre, all you have left are the extremes, and Brexit boils down to a choice between leaving without a deal, or not leaving at all.
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