PM's team 'zen' as they face heavy defeat on Brexit
Theresa May faces the most important Commons vote in a generation but her team admit there's no back-up plan.
Sunday 2 December 2018 05:08, UK
The biggest mystery as we fly back from an intriguing G20 summit in Argentina is why Theresa May's team seem so zen about a coming heavy defeat in the most important Commons vote in a generation.
She is on a raft heading at speed off the political equivalent of this nation's Iguazu Falls.
"There's no plan B, there really isn't," some of her team say.
And she almost confirms the same in interviews, saying she has seen no alternative.
Asked by the travelling media what her legacy would be if she was forced out in the next few weeks, she engaged with the question, sounded defiant, but mentioned nothing beyond April.
"There is a lot more for me still to do, not least delivering on Brexit and being the prime minister that does take the United Kingdom out of the European Union."
Despite some ostensibly supportive words from the prime ministers of Japan and Australia, praising her resolve, and warning Britain to avoid "no deal", the news at home got worse:
:: Sam Gyimah's resignation was brutally timed and executed, robs the PM of another vote, and now means there is a team of smart, skilled, motivated young ex-ministers with the bit between their teeth on pausing Brexit, and pushing a new exit referendum.
:: Sky News' story that even a large proportion - at least a third, and perhaps half of the MPs she has appointed as personal prime ministerial trade envoys for these post-Brexit trade deals - will vote against her deal.
:: And three envoys told Sky News that preparations for talks in April were thrown into disarray by her withdrawal deal. There were also concerns that her plans to maintain free-flowing trade with Europe would limit the ability to include goods in new third-party trade deals.
When I asked her about whether she had the scope to do proper trade deals with goods included in an interview on Friday, she fudged the issue.
When I asked her again if she had really been talking with world leaders at the G20 about trade deals involving goods (deals that would surely be incompatible with the customs union backstop) she seemed to say something new.
She said a Chequers-style arrangement would allow us to join the new Trans Pacific Partnership but then added "don't forget that what's important about world trade is that trade and the future of trade is about more than goods".
This was a heavy hint that her plan would be for restricted trade deals, albeit covering the bulk of our economy - the services sector, but not goods. Why? Because of alignment with the EU in goods to keep the Irish border open, and frictionless free trade in manufacturing industry parts. Some clarity on the trade-offs, at last.
All this amid the threat of a giant trade war between the US and China - big enough but not the issue of the day for a prime minister now heading back to Britain to the start of the meaningful vote debate.
Awaiting her are huge and historic parliamentary decisions with numbers even more difficult now than when she arrived at the summit two days ago.
And it is uncertain if those numbers will even stay the same during her 13-hour flight home.