Almost everything about this moment deserves either regret or condemnation. Forty months have passed since the referendum, but MPs will have little more than four hours to assess the new withdrawal agreement governing Britain’s departure from the EU. That’s barely time to read it, let alone debate and scrutinise it. To rush through a decision of such gravity is not the action of a country that is serious about its own future....That in itself is a good reason to support Oliver Letwin’s amendment, which would force the government to seek another EU extension and give everyone more time. (Letwin’s prime purpose is to head off a bit of Spartan chicanery, making it impossible for the hardcore Brexiters to get round the Benn Act by voting yes on Saturday, only to vote down the withdrawal agreement later, thereby triggering a no-deal exit on 31 October.)
Is there still the concept of vexatious litigation for Maughan or vexatious legislation for Letwin?
What debate there is will be blind to the most crucial facts [sic -- see below] . The chancellor, Sajid Javid, has refused to provide an economic impact assessment of the deal, breezily insisting that any cost will be worth it because getting Brexit agreed will be “good for the fabric of our democracy”. The closest guide we have is an independent study, warning that the latest arrangements could reduce Britain’s per capita GDP by up to 7% over 10 years [my emphasis] (compared with remaining) [so is that a real reduction or an accountant's one?] , making this deal even more economically damaging than Theresa May’s.
Johnson must never be credited with anything:
[He] was ready to – what’s the word? – surrender a principle that for the leader of the Conservative and Unionist party should have been sacrosanct [the Union with NI. The result is good though, surely, for Freedland?] Northern Ireland will be, in effect, in the EU customs union from day one, even if it officially remains part of the UK customs area.
Despite the Gurdina's best efforts,though:
Johnson may just scrape home. If that happens, there will be many millions in this country who will feel nothing less than bereft....For three and a half years, they have put off that moment of pain, hoping that somehow, Brexit might be averted, that their fellow Britons would change their minds and change course. Sometime on Saturday that dream could be over....they have come to value it very dearly. It is an ideal of cooperation across borders; of their country combining with its neighbours, rather than fighting against them, to face down shared threats, whether they be the climate crisis or the lethal recklessness of Donald Trump. In 2019, that idea seems more necessary than ever. Yet tomorrow it could all vanish....They – we – fear we are about to lose something very precious.
It's still all about imagined communities and paranoid fantasies then. Brexit will mean World War 3 with Germany or keep Trump in power permanently.The climate will now worsen and we shall all be drowned in our agreeable inner urban suburbs.
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