Thread by @jonworth

Before this week's #Brexit shenanigans, I said this:

"With May as Prime Minister there can be no Brexit deal"

I stand by that statement

https://twitter.com/jonworth/status/1072101153477926912

I see no way that the #EUCO - ongoing as I write this thread - can give May anything that'll appease the Brexit hard liners in her party

🇪🇺 is not going to make the backstop time limited or allow 🇬🇧 to unilaterally withdraw it. So the deal on the table is essentially unchanged

The Tories reaching across the political divide to Labour still looks like a ridiculously long shot as well:
theguardian.com/politics/2018/…

Earlier this week there were two options open:

- replace May, and give someone else a go
OR
- find some other way out of the present #Brexit stasis

Now May has survived the No Confidence vote in her own party, and Labour - correctly - realises trying to no confidence the Government is not going to work, the first of those two options is out for now

Even Bill Cash won't no confidence the government:

https://twitter.com/OxfordCrest/status/1073168604353449989

So we are left with the second option - finding some other way out

⛔️ May and her cabinet seem to have settled on playing for time, hoping they can some pull a rabbit out of the hat by sometime in January
theguardian.com/politics/live/…
That seems to be more out of hope than expectation

⛔️ Labour's preferred option - engineering an early General Election - also looks to be out for the same reasons that a vote of no confidence in the government is out. It would need Tories or the DUP to want to go for that

So that leaves us with two ways forward...

❓ Withdrawing the Article 50 notification 📩
❓ Holding a #PeoplesVote 🗳

I do not include No Deal here, because there is a clear majority in the Commons against that. And post-ECJ judgment, rescinding is easier than extending.

Both John Major and Kenneth Clarke have advocated rescinding Article 50
Major: independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…
Clarke: express.co.uk/news/uk/105789…

However I still see this as the less likely course of action - it looks like the Commons rejecting the "will of the people" (I don't think it is, but I am thinking in communication terms here), and doing this would *not* go down at all well with the rest of the 🇪🇺

Which brings us then to the #PeoplesVote

The Tories don't want it, but that still does not mean it will not happen.

There is no majority in Parliament for:
❌ Remain
❌ No Deal
❌ May's Deal
❌ No confidence-ing the Government
❌ A General Election

Rescinding Article 50 is ❓, and is v hard to communicate

So what else is there, to avoid No Deal #Brexit?

#PeoplesVote

The Tories around May can frame it as being the way to avoid No Deal disaster. The ERG can't now oust May. Labour can reluctantly agree to it. SNP, Greens, Lib Dems happy to have it anyway.

If the referendum ends up with May's Deal, she reigns supreme and humiliates the ERG wing of her party. If Remain wins, she has averted a national disaster, and she might get some credit for it.

Both Tories and Labour do as they did last time - let their MPs campaign on whichever side they wish.

Once May returns from #EUCO with v little, and with the Brexit ⏰ still ticking, clamour for this will grow.

"We, Parliament, cannot agree. But we know we and you don't want No Deal. So let's put this back to the people!"

This week's developments, I think, make such a course of action more likely.

/ends