….which is inhabited either by foolish men and women or by people who must now lay down their differences and work together to snatch a positive outcome for our nation from the jaws of Cameron and Mays crisis.

Writing in today’s Telegraph William Hague states “So the hard line Brexiteers are voting down Mrs Mays Brexit in the hand in order to grab for one that’s in the bush, relying on that Commons majority being unable to organise and assert itself. There is a slim chance they might be justified in that hope – it is hard to think of a more factional, divided and poisonous parliament in the last 200 years, and there is no consensus on any alternative course of action.” He appears to be arguing that the reason why his hard line colleagues are voting against the May deal is so they can force the country into a no deal arrangement due to the time left to come up with an alternative. On the other hand he explains a number of ways in which the majority could work to avoid a no deal taking place. Amongst his suggestions he points out that although the current regulations and legislation mean that the only way to avoid Brexit taking place on 29th March at 11am is if a Minister of the Crown proposes a regulation to do so, that in fact Parliament could engage with a sense of coherence to either demand this or they could change the regulations and then come up with a deal of their own and one element of this deal could be a chance to go back to the nation. Now of course there would be many people who would find this unacceptable, but equally there are others and many of them who would find this a good outcome.