Member-only story
Back to the Commons for more on Brexit
Last night the House of Commons voted on four alternatives to No-Deal and May’s Deal Brexit, they were any deal to be confirmed by a confirmatory/final say referendum, aiming for Custom’s Union, aiming for a Customs Union and Single Market membership, and changing the default, currently to leave without a deal to Revoking of article 50. They all failed to win a majority, but the Customs Union only lost by three votes. My free blog article has a graphic from the Institute of Governance showing the votes by party. I also present the majorities/minorities in bar chart form below.
A number of MPs and commentators have argued, partly as a result of the ERG’s stupid game playing, that accepting May’s binding deal in exchange for a promise that the non-binding political declaration becomes better than May’s first draft is unacceptable; much of the problem in compromising in or with Parliament is that it can’t bind itself, so its promises are worthless. It’s one of the reasons I still support remain as Parliament can’t break the accession treaties. This means that “Customs Union” and “Common Market 2.0” have questionable value and the Withdrawal Agreement with it’s sub-standard citizenship guarantees and its failure to sustain the Good Friday Agreement underwrite them. The vote however is meant to be indicative.
