Whisperings in Westminster tell me that both parties are about to change their Brexit strategies

Something’s going on in each of the two main parties when it comes to Brexit.  On the one hand, Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, said last week that there had been “little progress” since March, and that there was a “risk of failure”. On the other hand, events are forcing both the government and Labour to face up to the fact that neither of their positions on Brexit are sustainable. One senses the tectonic plates are moving. Why? On the Conservative side, the prime minister proposed a hard Brexit to the British people at last year’s election and consequently she lost her majority.  Jacob Rees-Mogg and the shadowy European Research Group (ERG) may still want a Brexit in which the UK has no involvement in the economic structures – the customs union and single market – of the EU, nor its agencies or its rules and regulations (what they call “a clean break”), but the election demonstrated there was insufficient support in the country for that model. And the resulting arithmetic in the House of Commons means there aren’t the votes to get such a proposition through. Unfortunately, Theresa May’s first priority is to retain her office; everything else – including the… Read full this story

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Whisperings in Westminster tell me that both parties are about to change their Brexit strategies have 341 words, post on www.independent.co.uk at May 21, 2018. This is cached page on Vietnam Colors. If you want remove this page, please contact us.