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Lab MPs like this are as illogical and destructive as the ERG.
Spring this year: "I want Brexit, but I won't vote for May's deal because it is too damaging"
Now: "I want Brexit and will vote for the most damaging of all possible Brexits because reasons".
Spring this year: "I want Brexit, but I won't vote for May's deal because it is too damaging"
Now: "I want Brexit and will vote for the most damaging of all possible Brexits because reasons".
This is like Stuart Lee's bit about Richard Hammond as a coward caught between two conflicting forms of cowardice. These MPs have spent months hoping the Tories would get Brexit through without their help, so they could pretend they backed it without voting for it...
...now they're running scared of voters annoyed it hasn't happened and therefore embracing a deeply damaging and chaotic outcome rather than stand up to Farage and the Brexit party and publicly state that no deal is, in fact, a lot worse than the deal they already voted down.
I do sympathise with the broader dilemma faced by Labour MPs like this, who both dislike the current Brexit deal on offer and feel some combination of the referendum mandate and local constituency sentiment needs to be respect. *But* this position is both unprincipled & inept
Its unprincipled because if yr principled position as an MP is "Brexit must happen" then you should have voted for May's deal. No other deal was going to come, and the likeliest outcome of her deal failing was a Con leader offering a worse deal or No Deal Brexit.
It is strategically inept because it was really v obvious that the likeliest consequence of May's deal failing was being forced to back or oppose Brexit on worse terms quite soon after. So why not back the most favourable Brexit deal anyone was going to get?
Many of these MPs probably privately thought that May's deal was going to fail and why should they take a political hit for it? Well, their repeated refusal to back it helped to doom it. And while that stance makes political sense in many ways, it is in no way principled
So if your position in the spring was to stand silently on the sidelines watching May's deal collapse, and her leadership with it, you cannot now appear on TV saying "Brexit must happen" without looking both unprincipled and a bit ridiculous.
(PS for those who don't know the Stuart Lee bit its here from about 11 minutes in. Imagine a Labour MP simultaneously applauding and trying to look disapproving as Boris announces a vote on No Deal. That's basically the Sarah Champion posn)
