There is no happy ending for Britain

WHICHEVER way you cut it, Brexit is a bad deal for Britain.

Leading economists have warned Theresa May that all Brexit plans, including her favoured Chequers deal, threaten to damage the British economy.

The world’s financial watchdog said her Brexit is bad but the no-deal Brexit of her party’s hardliners is worst of all.

While May last night found the backbone to stand up to the hard Brexit rebels in her own party, her message of “my deal or no deal” is not really aimed at them.

The Rees-Moggs of this world would be delighted with no deal, even if it would take, as he admitted, 50 years to balance the nation’s books afterwards.

The threat of no deal is really aimed at Labour, SNP and Lib Dem MPs who would find themselves being the handmaidens of a bad Brexit, the worst Brexit, if they do not back the Chequers deal.

The maths are against getting any deal through Parliament unless opposition MPs back the Tory PM. Voting against her deal won’t necessarily bring her down.

She would win a vote of confidence that followed, but it makes a hard Brexit even more likely. Would she then pull the trigger on a general election?

A second referendum, on the terms of the deal? Labour aren’t backing it, yet. The SNP are on the fence and the Lib Dems look like Billy-no-mates this week.

We are in a crucial phase of the Brexit process and the stakes are high, as Jaguar Land Rover demonstrated yesterday by switching to a short-time week.

So much for arch-Brexiteer Bernard Jenkin’s claim the firm are “making up” dire predictions about Brexit.