Theresa May has the perfect answer to all difficult questions: we don’t want to give away anything that will harm our position in the Brexit negotiations. No matter whether the information an MP is requesting has anything to do with Britain’s negotiating position: it’s a handy line to use when the answer is in fact ‘I don’t actually know’. The Prime Minister deployed this argument about not wanting to undermine the negotiations several times as she took questions from MPs in the Commons following her statement on last week’s European Council summit. She refused to give any further details on the sort of figures involved in the divorce bill negotiations when asked for ‘more transparency and openness with Parliament’ by Sir Edward Leigh, dodged questions on whether the Cabinet had discussed the future relationship with the EU, and even on whether the Cabinet was united in its Brexit vision.
There were some questions that the Prime Minister could quite reasonably dodge, such as one from Anna Soubry asking her to rule out there being no deal.
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