Blame game starts

May lost the vote again and nice people are very cross and panicky. One aspect has been to begin to lay down the bases for a new PV campaign. An early issue is -- who was to blame for the fiasco?

P Toynbee weighs in:

The prime minister got one thing right: we can’t blame the EU for this 

The revolutionary Brexit Conservatives have brought down their own party and in effect their government. Tory extremists who voted down the prime minister’s deal while yearning for their utterly unobtainable “clean break” have lost control too: the one certainty is this parliament of chaos will ensure Britain does not leave the EU with no deal...At least May spelled out one useful warning [after being slagged off as ineffective and hopeless]... when everything collapses around their ears, when Brexit proves a calamity, “It will be no good blaming the EU, responsibility would lie with this House.” And so it would – unless this House can pull back, revoke article 50 with a confirmatory public vote, and try to dismiss this whole desperate episode as a brief strange nightmare that history should forget.... Jeremy Corbyn in his 25-minute speech today made not one reference, not one, to the second referendum his party overwhelmingly desires? So much for his lifetime of preaching the supremacy of party members’ views. Nonethless, Labour will not be to blame: the Brexit nightmare is all Tory....There is no solution but to ask the people...[especially as].... Remain stands 8-10% ahead in the polls. 

Toynbee evidently belongs to the old school of grief management, before therapy:

The only way now is to stay in the EU, and forget all this ever happened....God help us all.

Meanwhile, the Graun does at least carry (not very prominently but it is there) an alternative proposal advanced by some Brexiteers including O Paterson:

It has come to be called the “Malthouse Plan B”. In this scenario, both the EU and UK agree to minimise any disruption, ensuring that trade continues without the withdrawal agreement. The government has already put in place such measures and MEPs have voted on a number of “mini-deals”, including an arrangement for British car certifications to continue, permission for the EU to sell the UK their goods as a third country, an aviation deal to allow flights to continue and a road haulage deal....We need to remember, also, that no deal on 30 March is not an end state. Under article 24 of the WTO’s general agreement on tariffs and trade, so long as the UK and EU agree to a free trade agreement (FTA) and notify the WTO of a sufficiently detailed plan and schedule for the FTA as soon as possible, we could even maintain our current zero-tariff, zero-quantitative restrictions arrangements, while the new deal was being negotiated.