Vocal Voices

During last week the PM announced that the UK would leave the customs union and the single market, and it went down like a lead balloon. Today Anna Soubry (Con) and Chuka Umunna (Lab) announced that there are enough MPs againt the move and they could join forces to overturn any such deal when they get a "meaningful vote" on the terms of Brexit before it happens in March next year.

There does appear to be a groundswell of opinion in parliament and in the country that the Norway option is the one to go for, one where we are out of the EU but still in the EFTA. It is the soft Brexit option or Brexit in name only, BRINO. but there are problems.

Nobody, anywhere voted for such a deal, it was never mentioned, and there will be hard cores of Leavers and Remainers outraged at such a fudge and they will not want to give in. The divisions in families, among friends and in communities will become chasms. Is it wortth the risk?

Actually there is a bigger problem than that for the soft Brexiteers.

You have to ask for it and all the MP's can vote against any deal they want; but that will not force the PM to ask for the Norway option, even if the EU would accept it.

The only thing Sourby and the rest of them can get by voting the deal down is the hardest of hard Brexit.

We Need Boris to stand up and say "Go for it Make My Day".

I have to say that they were both quite clear that MPs could not stop Brexit, the only people to stop it is us, the people... though they didn't say how. Hmmm, soundbites.

The problem they have, as I see it, is that if the deal includes leaving the customs union and single market, a hardish Brexit, and it gets voted down, then they get the full hard Brexit. The slimmest chance they have, and it is slim, is if Tory rebels of the Remain kind force May out and then have a general election.

The thing is that the Tory rebels can whinge all they want. But the only way they are getting May out and an election is to bring down the government with a vote of no confidence.

If they did that, they would not be Tories for many more seconds beyond when they did it.

It is true that the only way they are getting to stay in the customs union is if they bring May and the government down. I just can't see it. But, then again, Never say Never in politics. Political suicide is I'm vogue.

Suff wrote:The only thing Sourby and the rest of them can get by voting the deal down is the hardest of hard Brexit.

Do they understand this? It's OK for them to grandstand but the clock is ticking, and if they block any deal there is going to be no deal.