‘Super Saturday’ rather failed to live up to its billing, as MPs voted for the Letwin amendment, forcing Boris Johnson to shelve his his ‘meaningful vote’. So, with Mr Johnson having written to Europe, after a fashion, to request an extension on Brexit, and written a second letter deriding the first as a bad idea, where are we now?
The Daily Mail
Dominic Lawson opens with an anecdote: “When he was 14, staying at a friend’s house, Oliver Letwin broke the garlic press. He had been trying to crush walnuts in it. The friend’s mother aptly summed up the young Oliver: ‘Lovely boy. No common sense.’”
This tells you everything you need to know about Sir Oliver, Lawson implies, adding disparagingly that he entered politics “after a dalliance in the academic field to which he is suited”.
The peer is a nice man, and a formidable intellect, but his lack of understanding of people is demonstrated by his staunch support for the poll tax, the columnist writes. “This, after all, is the man who let two burglars into his home at 3am after they told him they wanted to use his loo.
“Good politics is fundamentally about understanding people: what makes them tick, or — in the case of the poll tax — explode.”
The fact that further delay to Brexit will be the only result of Mr Oliver’s amendment is disastrous, Lawson argues.
“When his cack-handed experimentation threatens to break not a replaceable kitchen tool but our very system of government... it doesn’t matter how lovely he is as a person, he will still not be forgiven.”
The Times
“As Super Saturday became damp squib Saturday, a weary sigh swept the nation like a weather front,” sighs Clare Foges. But she foresees no early end to the fatigue. The Government’s ‘Get Brexit Done’ slogan is clever, she thinks, promising an exhausted public resolution after four “quarrelly” years. “How seductive the promise of resolution is, but how disingenuous,” she writes, “for even if this deal passes and delivers us swiftly out of the EU, our Brexit travails are nowhere near “done”.
Pollsters Populus say that many people in their regular Brexit focus groups think Mr Johnson’s ‘deal’ is a final trade deal. “When these focus groups are told that Brexit triggers a longer phase of talks and trade negotiations, the response is often ‘horrified silence’.”
What people really want over and done with is all the rancour, she claims. “The government would like us to believe that getting Brexit “done” will fix this... The idea that exiting the EU will in itself lance the boil of bad temper is optimistic in the extreme.”
The answer is a second referendum, she says. While this path has been ‘remainer’ territory thus far, those who wish to leave the EU should also embrace it, she says. “Though many will feel like retreating to a cave at the thought of another vote... it is the best way to settle the issue cleanly and decisively without years of recriminations afterwards. “
The Scotsman
Lesley Riddoch also foresees another referendum, praising Labour’s Keir Starmer, for setting out a clear position. “The Shadow Brexit secretary followed an impressive Commons speech on Saturday with a categorical assurance on yesterday’s Andrew Marr Show that Labour will back an amendment calling for a referendum on Johnson’s Brexit deal, perhaps as early as tomorrow. No ifs or buts.”
While Starmer’s line has yet to be confirmed by Jeremy Corbyn, Ms Riddoch says the SNP should back it, although in an interview, she says Ian Blackford MP declined to do so.”It seems a strangely wooden response to a fluid situation and leaving the SNP in danger of backing the wrong horse tomorrow,” she says.
Nicola Sturgeon should overcome her reluctance, she adds. “The SNP may worry that a confirmatory referendum on Brexit sets a difficult precedent for indyref2. It might, but we are where we are – perhaps about to find a democratic solution for a stalemate which might otherwise hand the next general election to Johnson on a plate.”
The Daily Telegraph
Nick Timothy appeals to Sir Letwin and other Tory rebels to back the prime minister. “The rebels might have many reasons to disobey Boris. He sacked them from the Tory party, and some of them hate him personally. But they risk acting as useful idiots for the hard-Left,” he warns. “They might well hope that a referendum would lead to the abandonment of Brexit,” but they could also put Labour in power. “Tory rebels can stop Brexit or they can stop Labour, but they cannot stop both”.
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