Week's Brexit briefing - The Times14 Jun 2018 22:36
Good afternoon and welcome to this week's Brexit briefing from The Times
After two days of parliamentary sound and fury over Brexit, what have we learnt that matters? Actually quite a lot, but not necessarily the stuff of headlines.
The first thing is that the balance of power has shifted in Westminster. While last year it was the hard Brexiteers who were in the ascendancy it is now those who want Theresa May to negotiate the softest possible departure who hold the whip hand.
It is now clear that whatever the prime minister says about 'no deal being better than a bad deal' she simply doesn't have the parliamentary numbers to walk away. Not only that but pro-European rebels have now forced the government to accept a mechanism for parliament to have a decisive voice in what happens should the talks collapse.
The second thing is that nearly 100 Labour MPs care more about getting the right kind of Brexit than about getting Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street. Yesterday's rebellion over Britain's future membership of the European Economic Area shows that potentially Mrs May could get support from Labour MPs if she secures a deal that is broadly in the national interest. She can't count on it but it is not impossible.
In this week's briefing we analyse all these issues, while Bruno Waterfield in Brussels points out that in reality MPs are likely to be forced to accept whatever the EU is prepared to offer or the government can negotiate.
Forget the Commons posturing, he says: the government is preparing a Brexit future that will be quasi-single market membership (with full ECJ powers) and a customs union.
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