Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: May must mean what she says on a Brexit no deal

Ahead of tomorrow’s Brexit speech in Florence, the Sun has some advice for the Prime Minister: show that you’re prepared to walk away. The paper says it is vital that the Cabinet pulls together around the PM’s Brexit. But it also asks: what happens if Angela Merkel doesn’t buy her plan? Of course, it would be good for Britain if the German Chancellor ‘realised the damage a ‘punishment’ Brexit will do to German car giants and saw reason’. But there’s no guarantee of that. So May must ’get serious about walking away’ – ‘It cannot be a bluff’, the Sun says. Former chancellor Lord Lawson is right to say ‘we have nothing to fear from a ‘no deal’. But while walking away empty handed wouldn’t be the worst thing the Government could do, ‘failing to be ready’ for such a scenario ‘would be a grotesque dereliction of duty’, the Sun concludes.

The Times is full of praise for the Prime Minister following her speech at the United Nations yesterday. Her address ‘was a defiant bid to change the subject from Brexit for her domestic audience’, the paper says. And while May’s authority has taken a battering, she managed to do ‘an impressive impersonation’ of a world leader still worth listening to. She talked about reforming the UN, migration, climate change and policing the internet – and she even managed to rebuke Trump. Yet her ‘ambitious’ address also had a further unspoken subject: ‘a demand that Britain continue to be heard’. By that measure, it was a ‘success’ – and, what’s more, a ‘refreshing change from the shadow-boxing between prime minister and foreign secretary’.

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