The Brexit good news.

[Suff]

Of course all of that is a sideshow. What is the more interesting question is whether May has the guts to make the vote a vote of confidence or not. If she does, will enough Labour Brexiteers rebel in order to overwhelm the DUP vote.

Interesting that this possibility is not coming up in the press.

Although all this talk about Labour forming a government without an election may be driven by it.

[Suff]

Clearly not, she cancelled the vote.

Interesting stuff. I guess we'll just have to seee whether it happens before the Christmas recess now...

This throws the ball firmly back into the EU court. It is said May called Tusk to ask for concessions. It is more likely that she called Tusk to say it will never pass with the Backstop as it is defined.

Leaving it up to the EU to accept something less.

Viewing from the cheap seats is becoming interesting...

[cromwell]

Farce heaped upon farce.

[medsec222]

It's one thing giving the electorate a referendum in order for them to exercise their choice, but it is quite another thing to offer a second referendum due to the fact that Parliament cannot govern. What a nonsense.

[TheOstrich]

Farce heaped upon farce.

What a nonsense.

Yes. It is about the only thing I think we can all readily agree on.

[Suff]

Well I think we can all agree that May doesn't have what it takes.

If she did, she would not have backed herself into a corner like this in the first place, then, even if she did, she would have brazened it out by making the vote a vote of confidence in the government. Essentially forcing every Tory MP to vote for the bill. Forget whipping, Tory MP's will never, ever, be forgiven for rebelling and bringing the government down. Then she would have put the DUP on the spot. Because they would have been between a rock and a hard place, support May for a bill they does not want or let Corbyn in and see him dismantle our economy and drag the UK out of the EU with a botched up mess of a deal.

Now, let the games begin. Will May face a challenge to save the party? Or will they continue white knuckling it? Will the EU cave on the backstop or will the drama continue into January before Tusk delivers the Coup de Grace??

It is worth having a read of this new statesman article about Corbyn and what he is doing and why.

We do not know what May has said to Tusk and Juncker. She could have said the bill will never pass with the backstop. They could have insisted. Now they can't. It is absolutely clear that the vote would have been defeated by around 100 votes. It could even have brought the government down if she insisted on making it a vote of confidence and the DUP sunk the government.

We haven't even got close to a farce yet. So far this is run of the mill EU politics.

However we have one real last laugh. By making the decision they did, the EU opened itself up to endless A50 triggering and rescinding. Plenty of member states out there with a grievance and, now, any whack job of a party can win enough votes for a referendum based on the fact that they can always change their minds at the 11th hour and there is nothing the EU can do about it.

You can be very sure that A50 will be one of the very first modifications when the treaties are opened up to review. Withdrawing the notification will be _EXPLICITLY_ excluded. In fact I would expect that it would be tied to unanimous voting even if QMV was in place everywhere else.

Something to laugh about in all the tension.

[Workingman]

It has got nothing whatsoever to do with EU politics, nothing, nothing at all. It has everything to do with broken UK politics and the Tory party - only the Tory party.

Did I say the Tory party? I meant the Conservatives. Today's sh1tfest is wholly owned by the Tories/Conservatives.

May can do a grand tour of the EU, but the EU has been very clear, the withdrawal bill will not be revisited - it's closed.

Right up to 11 am yesterday May and her ministers were adamant that the vote would take place.... the came the cowardly U-turn. We are now into can-kicking pt 303. May didn't even have the decency to give even a prospective date for a new vote. All we know is that the Bill becomes active on Jan 21st and it has just been announced that Labour have tabled an urgent question to discover the latest possible date for parliament's meaningful vote.

I thought that Blair would be the nadir for PMs in my lifetime, but then came Cameron and now May.

[Suff]

I thought that Blair would be the nadir for PMs in my lifetime, but then came Cameron and now May.

To put Cameron and May in the same boat as Blair is a little harsh. Cameron is honest and managed to lead through two elections, made a coalition work for a full term and delivered a growing and stable economy with Austerity to get the Labour glutfest of debt down. The same people who call him a disaster as a PM also said he would fail. They were wrong then and they are wrong now.

May? I'd put her on a par with Michael Foot.

But Blair? Sorry but you have to be a lot worse than May to be as bad as Blair. I don't even put Brown on the same footing. But I put Major as a close second.

As for this mess being all down to the Tories? They are not even a coalition, they are a minority government with a confidence and supply partner who demand the impossible, something the EU will never agree to.

So you think Corbyn. With a grand coalition, to form a minority government with the SNP lording it over Corbyn, would be better?

The only thing we could Ever have expected was to emerge with a whole skin. Coming out with anything more was stretching the bounds of credibility but there was never anything wrong with trying.

If you want to blame anyone, blame the Gina Millers of this world who would destroy the people's vote and bring down the government for their own selfish ends.

But no, let's blame the Tories. You call this an omnishambles, Labour would have made it look like perfect planning. But, of course, we don't know that because Labour have done nothing but obstruct and heckle from the sidelines.

The people who could have made this simple and painless chose not to. But that's all right then because it is all the fault of May and the Tories.

That is the kind of thinking that perpetuates the EU. Honestly, given the performance of the British public so far, they don't deserve anything else and neither do their reprobates in parliament.

[Workingman]

Never mind the 'what ifs' and 'maybes' we are where we are.

Cameron was the architect of this mess. He promised a referendum to try to halt the rise of UKIP (stealing Tory votes) and to quell the anti EU MPs in his party. He then went to Brussels with a list of reforms of the EU. The EU played its part by entering into negotiations. Cameron pushed, the EU pushed back and eventually an agreement was reached.

The problem was not that Cameron came back with nothing, he actually got some concessions, but that what he did get were inconsequential, even those of us who would become Remainers saw that. Future Brexiters made it out as a failure and they then capitalised on it and used it as a stick to beat him with all the way to the referendum.

When he lost the referendum Cameron ran away.

Enter Mrs May.

Let us not forget that May stood for election to become leader of the Tories. She wanted to be leader and also Prime Minister with a 34 seat majority. Eight months later she triggered A50 but only after the law was clarified by the action of Gina Miller et al. Without parliamentary approval May would have tried to trigger A50 unilaterally. Shortly after she called a snap election to boost her majority thus breaking the spirit of the Fixed Term Parliament Act 2011, which she voted for. That showed a bad lack of judgement as it backfired spectacularly ending up with a hung parliament. It is thanks to her own stupidity and avarice for power that she ended up with a weakened hand to negotiate with the EU.

Other lapses of judgement are shown with her appointments to cabinet. Johnson. Fox and Davis - really. Getting into bed with DUP. Installing Olly Robbins as de facto chief negotiator. Failing to listen to advice when all around her were resigning. Then yesterday then topped things off with the most cowardly of actions - calling off the vote at the 11th hour.

Because of Mays handling of, and interfering with, Brexit the country has not been governed properly for almost two years, and we still have no sort of deal to speak of.

However, I did love the timing of yesterday's announcement from the CJEU re A50. It could have come in handy had it bee known after the election debacle, something along the lines of:

"Oops I screwed up with that one - big time. I now have no cards to play, no plans and I am sending men over to top as my sacrificial lambs. Oh, hang on. I can revoke A50, sit back with a coffee, assemble a crack team of negotiators and come up with some plans for this, that and the other. Sorted!"

That could only happen with someone sensible as PM, but we are light years away from that.

[Workingman]

Bloody Hell!

We now learn that over £100k was spent on Facebook ads for May's deal. Other ads were placed on Twitter, Linkedin and Google - cost unknown.