May's future hangs in balance

Outlook bleak.
--
-

That is the doleful forecast around Westminster over the plight of Theresa May’s Chequers plan for Brexit - and indeed for her own future as Prime Minister.

With yet another ministerial resignation at the end of last week, the prospects for its success seem to be dwindling as each day passes. And the arithmetic for her getting the plan through Parliament on December 11 continues to stack up ominously against her, yet she refuses all efforts and blandishments for her to either withdraw it, or rework it drastically.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Have the Tory whips let her down? They should have seen right from the start, it is argued, that the Chequers plan was probably doomed to failure. It is almost certainly too late now for those whips to indulge in offering perks or threatening metaphorical arm-twisting to those Tories who have indicated they will vote against the plan.

Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer, the Shadow Brexit Secretary, has warned that he will set in motion contempt of Parliament proceedings against the Government if ministers continue to refuse to make public the legal advice over Brexit.

You would think that things could hardly get worse for the Prime Minister. Yet she stubbornly sticks to her guns. But she could surprise us all on December 11. She might just sneak home.

Stranger things have happened.

- When the then Prime Minister David Cameron denounced the incipient Ukip as “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists, mostly”, I thought he was going over the top. I was wrong. If anything, when you consider what is going on now, he was understating the case.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

No wonder former Ukip leader Nigel Farage is close to spitting blood over the present leader Gerard Batten’s decision to appoint the far-right activist Tommy Robinson as his advisor.

Farage warns that this move could help to transform Ukip into the BNP.

And he has called on Batten to resign as leader. Farage also says that he himself will quit Ukip if there are marches ahead with Batten and Tommy Robinson at the forefront.