Another day of dithering

So they had some non-binding votes about something or other. You probably know more about it than I do. I worked out that the withdrawal agreement was a non-amendable document - which was easy to do because that's what senior Brussels figures have been saying all week and they couldn't have been more explicit. Consequently it doesn't matter what was in any of those amendments because Article 50 is non-amendable too.

So as I understand it there is a meaningless sentiment to take no deal off the table and an instruction to go back to Brussels with a yet another cockameme the EU wouldn't accept in a billion years. The  proposal has the backing of the ERG and Steve Baker which tells you it's a total non starter and again, Brussels has been explicit.

So where we are is where we were. The threat of crashing out without a deal looms and the only deal on the table is the deal on the table. Some seem to think Brussels will cave in at the last minute which is why they are so insistent that no deal should never be taken off the table. I do not think so.

As much as the EU does not want to compromise its own system, there are few ways of doing it and nothing that's an improvement on what's already in the agreement. They're making a big show of Irish solidarity and there are no diplomatic signals that suggest the EU will fold. Certainly none worth paying attention to. Moreover, there is now too much bad blood. If we look like we're going over the cliff, they will let us.

So if you want my best guess, it's pretty much the same as yours; May has to go to Brussels and come back with something - which can only be a face saving exercise - and then she has to put the deal back to parliament where MPs will  have to decide once and for all whether it be no deal or May's deal. My hunch is that it will scrape over the line. Rune readers looking at the votes from last can probably triangulate which way it goes. A lot of it depends on what Labour does. Politics could very well trump good sense.

Aside from that, catatonic with boredom as I am, there is little more to be said save to remark on the state of parliament. Sam Hooper remarks that "When I was at Warwick University, the Students’ Union held a virtue-signalling vote condemning President Bush’s state visit to Britain. This vote by Parliament to “stop no-deal Brexit” is actually even less rooted in reality, and far worse because those involved are well-paid adults".

I happened to catch some of the debates earlier in the day. The same issue illiteracy that existed right at the beginning is there to be seen in spades. They have learned nothing and they are still not listening to anything from outside the bubble. Their understanding has not developed. The future of the country now rests on the toss of a coin. The problem in Westminster right now is various shades of denial. Opponents of Brexit can't admit they're beaten and the Brexiters can't admit they've been beaten by Brussels... and reality.