SNAFU as Remainers threaten to bore on

J Freedland in teh Graun still isn't ready to go quietly:

MPs have voted for the bill to go forward, but that doesn’t mean they all back it – or that the saga is ending any time soon

He might be right. The timetable to get the Bill through by October 31st was defeated, so now the EC decides whether to extend and if so for how long, no doubt motivated entirely by what is best. Recovering from a brief shock, seen best in bleak faces on C4 News when the first vote came through, the Remainers still see a chance for mischief via amendments as the Bill proceeds.

Johnson won his meaningful vote by 329 to 299 votes, a majority of 30. Put another way, and as if to reflect this divided nation through what have become the defining numbers of the Brexit era, he won by 52% to 48%.[ but before we sneer, the timetable]... was defeat[ed] by 322 to 308 – all but 52-to-48 in reverse.

E Maitlis, who doesn't seem very good at sums, crowed at the second majority but not the first [maybe -- I find it hard to concentrate during her scolding tirades and point-scoring]

Fear not ye who Remain, says Freedland:

First, don’t fall for the hype that says that parliament approved Johnson’s deal. It did not. MPs simply voted for it to receive a second reading, some of them motivated by the desire not to endorse it but to amend it. As Labour’s Gloria De Piero confessed, she voted yes, “not because I support the deal but because I don’t”. That 30-vote majority will include MPs who wanted to propose UK membership of a customs union, others keen on conditioning the deal on public support in a confirmatory referendum. Screen out the Tory spin: those MPs should not be counted as backers of the deal.

However, nagging doubts resurface:

Johnson felt compelled to call the whole thing to a halt...Why? The obvious explanation is that this gives the PM a pretext to grab what he really wants: an early election framed as a battle to get Brexit done, with him as the people’s tribune pitted against those wicked remainer saboteurs.

But rejoice! There might be more fuck-ups to come as remainers search desperately for a last square metre to pitch their tent on (as Q Letts put it). Freedland finds hope:

Any period of scrutiny is unpalatable to Johnson, because he fears that the threadbare coalition that might exist to back his deal will unravel once it engages in closer examination of the withdrawal agreement. Its erosion of workers’ rights; its creation of a new no-deal cliff edge in 2020; its entrenchment of a hard Brexit in law – all those dangers would only become more visible under the spotlight of protracted (or even normal) Commons scrutiny. Bits of his coalition – especially among those Labour MPs who backed him on Tuesday – would begin to flake off.

And finally, we must all breathe a sigh of relief:

we are not free of the Brexit saga yet, not by a long way.

Oh good.