Brexit

Rumours continue to circulate that if a long extension were to be granted by the European Union, it could be flexible. This would mean that Britain could officially depart from the bloc earlier than the agreed-upon exit date if a deal were secured between the UK and the EU27. I’m unsure what about the past two-and-a-half years could make someone think that MPs will pull together and unite around a deal before crunch time. I remain deeply sceptical that a long extension could ever encourage a shorter exit process – evidenced by not one, but two requests for an Article 50 extension in the past six weeks. Putting scepticism aside, there’s

Struggling to understand the ways of the French, the francophile Winston Churchill reflected whimsically in 1942: ‘The Almighty in His infinite wisdom did not see fit to create Frenchmen in the image of Englishmen.’ And yet today, the Almighty would struggle to create two more similar states in international terms than Britain and France. Similar geographies on the northwest European continent, similar populations (66 and 67 million), economies (5th and 6th by GDP), colonial histories, 3rd and 4th nuclear powers, two of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, leading members of Nato and, until 2019 (probably), equally prominent members of the European Union. The similarities continue to

Pretty much everyone I meet says they want all the Brexit uncertainty to end, one way or another. But that is now impossible: even agreement – which seems remote – on some version of the PM’s deal to take us out of the EU would only be a beginning of a sort, not an end, with so much left to decide on what kind of future relationship we need and deserve with the EU. And if there is no backing from MPs for the Withdrawal Agreement that is the divorce from the EU, then we are into a series of choices whose consequences would be to lead to various forms

The irony of the stalemate in the cross-party Brexit talks is that Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn are not that far apart on the issue, as I say in The Sun this morning. They might use different language, but what they want is really quite similar. But while they may not be that far apart, their parties are. A deal would require not one of them, but both of them to be prepared to split their parties. If Theresa May was to soften her deal to try and get Labour support, she would exacerbate the divide within her own party. I am told that in the talks, the government has

There has been considerable and widespread cynicism about the talks between the Government and Labour about a compromise that could break the Brexit deadlock. But those close to the negotiations, led today by David Lidington and Keir Starmer, believe there is at last a “plan with a chance,” of securing a positive vote from MPs for the PM’s Withdrawal Agreement, without which there can be no managed exit from the EU. It would involve a Government committing to staying in the Customs Union, “dynamic” alignment with EU rules covering workers’ rights and the environment and giving the Commons a vote on whether the whole package would be subject to confirmation