Kettle off the boil

Further signs of depression and dis-May in the Guadrina today. M Kettle now has a rather thin prospect of hope,now that the Tories seem to have voted both for a deal and for re-negotiation of a bit of it ( which will be the most important of the two remains[sic] to be seen).

Kettle now seems to be relying on Labour, but only after it organises a coup of its own:

In spite of the upbeat signals that came from Jeremy Corbyn’s meeting with Theresa May on Wednesday, experience suggests that it will not prove a turning point on Brexit....The only thing that would seem to unite them is that both want Brexit to happen, preferably under a Conservative government....Having claimed hers was the only possible deal, May has now pledged to try to change the Northern Ireland backstop arrangement in order to keep her right wing on board. Corbyn, meanwhile, wants her to adopt a soft Brexit approach that would, if she embraced it, trigger a full-scale revolt from her own side and from the Democratic Unionists.... May has less need of [cross-party support]  now. She has regained a bit of control. Her hardliners kept their swords sheathed. The chief whip and the chairman of the Tory backbenchers both played skilful hands, while pro-remain MPs overplayed theirs this time. A second referendum now looks a more distant prospect

On the PV, the Times is reporting splits in the movement between those who want to keep it as a single issue lobby and those who want to use it as the basis for a new political party

Kettle hasn't lost all hope though. There is the strange liberal prayer for further turmoil and indecision:

the vote for the Brady amendment was a vote for something that is both vague and unlikely to happen. The European Union has little incentive to agree to it. And, assuming that it will not happen, certainly not in the small window of time now available, it seems odds-on that May will soon be struggling to find a majority once more....This brings us back to the role that Corbyn may yet play. For most of the parliamentary Brexit process, Corbyn has been a large but inert presence. Brexit politics has happened around him, not with or through him. He remains content, it seems, to go through the motions but not to get his hands dirty. Up to a point, it has been a coherent strategy if your three priorities, like Corbyn’s, are for Brexit to happen, for the Tories to own it, and for your own pristine politics to remain unsullied by the most important argument facing the country...

Then for some new Labour [sic] people to emerge to replace Corbyn:

One pressure is that backbenchers in his party – such as Yvette Cooper and Hilary Benn – have emerged as de facto Labour figureheads [really?]. Another is that May has begun to engage with workplace and environmental regulatory issues that Labour cares about.

And some fantasy politics where all right-thinking nice people rally round:

A more adept Labour leader would have been reaching out relentlessly to Tory moderates over recent months on the customs elements of the eventual UK-EU trade deal, searching for common ground and looking for ways to ensnare them in a shared commitment to the open borders and regulatory alignment that the hard Brexiters so loathe....Such a thing may yet happen anyway. If May fails to get the changes from the EU that she seeks, and if this week’s Tory party unity comes under strain, as it may, then a space could open up for a softer Brexit deal...

And of course, the unproblematic 'national interest':

Even Corbyn must see what is now at stake, and why engaging seriously with May is overwhelmingly in the country’s interest.

On the latter, a GNU was spotted again last night on C4 News