What the commentators said
Remainers’ hopes of softening or delaying Brexit suffered a blow on Tuesday, said Katy Balls in The Spectator, but things may yet go their way. It’s likely that Tory support for May will drop off over the coming weeks. “A number of Remain-leaning ministers say they only held off rebelling this time in order to give May time to negotiate, but will rebel if no deal starts to look more likely.” May has “one last chance” to secure concessions from the EU. She may succeed, said Robert Shrimsley in the FT. It would, after all, make no sense for Brussels to keep insisting on a backstop to the point where this ended up precipitating the very situation the backstop was designed to avoid. But even if the EU does move, it’s “unlikely to do so until far closer to the wire. It will have noted the majority opposed to a no-deal outcome.”
Parliament has made its opposition to a no-deal Brexit very clear, said Stephen Bush in the New Statesman. But that just makes it all the more likely that MPS will end up voting for something very like May’s deal, as it’s equally clear that no other option stands a chance of getting through Parliament. Let’s face it, if the Commons can’t muster a majority at this late stage even for extending the Article 50 process, owing to MPS’ concerns about the impact at constituency level, there’s never going to be a majority for a second referendum.
The EU should be wary of rejecting May’s appeals out of hand, said William Hague in The Daily Telegraph. True, it is in a position to “play ‘chicken’ with some confidence that the passengers in the oncoming vehicle are going to grab the steering wheel and drive it off the road”. But an aborted Brexit would likely lead to May falling and being replaced, by either a more Eurosceptic Tory or by Jeremy Corbyn, and lead to years of bitter recrimination. Brussels should give some ground, agreed Iain Martin in The Times. In a speech last week, even Sir Ivan Rogers – the UK’S former ambassador to the EU and a vocal critic of Brexit – observed that the EU needed to show more flexibility. Brussels could “save everyone a lot of time by moving a little and getting a viable deal done now”.