May's in an incredibly tough place, though

Chequers isn't nearly enough for the hardline Brexit wing of her party. This is a not insignificant proportion of all Tories. And yet it's probably too much for the EU. It's not at all clear to me that there is a deal to be done that

a) Barnier can sell to the EC/EP/Council, AND
b) May can sell to her own party

(naively you might hope for c) May can sell to the country but we all know that's irrelevant now - I'd love a second vote but I don't see it happening).

There is a fundamental issue in that Leave did not spell out any kind of vision - because they didn't share one, and within the Leave side there were and are all kinds of views on what an "acceptable Brexit" looks like. "Brexit means Brexit" was always meaningless guff.

It's one thing to say "there was a majority for Brexit" but I genuinely don't believe at any time there was an actual concrete view of what Brexit really means that would have attracted majority support.

Full disclosure - I'm a Remainer - but no-one can think the negotiations have been handled competently from our side. They've royally bollocksed it up. However even if they'd done brilliantly I still think a majority would be disappointed with what came out the other end: none of the remainers would like it, and a lot of the leavers wouldn't either.

This is why letting May remain PM for a time is a wise move as she will carry a massive can of s**t around all this - any new PM would not be able to avoid same and would suffer at the next election.

Posted By: Old Man, Sep 13, 16:02:13