What the commentators said

So much for the idea that the Government’s Brexit position is at last crystallising, said Katy Balls in The Spectator. With No. 10 claiming that this week’s wrecking amendments are consistent with May’s blueprint, and others insisting they leave the plan “dead in the water”, it appears we’re back to the “Brexit position of old: fudge”. May’s days are numbered if she can’t recover control of her party, said Anne Mcelvoy in The Guardian. Her “traditional weakness, reticence, has returned to haunt her”. She must get out there and sell her deal to the country.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that there’s no majority in the Commons for any kind of Brexit, said Rachel Sylvester in The Times. That’s why more and more people are coming round to the idea of a second referendum. As the novelist Robert Harris put it in a recent tweet: “MPS will desperately want to hand the screaming, defecating, vomiting baby back to its parents – the electorate – and let them decide what to do with it.”

A second referendum is a “really bad idea”, said William Hague in The Daily Telegraph. Quite apart from the damage that effectively overruling the first referendum would inflict on democracy, and the bitterness a second vote would stir up, how would we even interpret the result? If people voted to leave with “no deal”, would that truly mean no deal at all, not even an arrangement for airlines to land? A no deal exit can come in many forms. Likewise, if people voted to stay in the EU, on what precise terms would the UK do so? Tories must stop feuding and reach a compromise, in order to head off the alluring yet dangerous idea of holding a second vote. If the stalemate persists, the proper way to resolve it would be to hold a general election, said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. Pressure for one will grow in any case if the Government carries on in this chaotic fashion. “The long, inglorious gamble – that if Labour just sat tight and waited for the Tories to screw it up, it could swoop in and collect the spoils – may be close to paying off.”

The official Brexit campaign exceeded its £7m spending limit by improperly funnelling £675,315 to the youth group Beleave, the Electoral Commission has found. The watchdog fined Vote Leave £61,000 and referred David Halsall, one of its officials, to the police. Darren Grimes, the founder of Beleave, who was 22 at the time of the referendum, was also referred to the police. The commission concluded that the two groups were effectively one because they were working to a “common plan”. The money was paid to the digital marketing firm Aggregate IQ, on which Vote Leave had already spent £2.7m. Vote Leave, which was fronted by Michael Gove and Boris Johnson, called the report “inaccurate” and politically motivated.