What the commentators said
Leading Brexiters were “jubilant” when May’s deal suffered its historic defeat, said Katy Balls in the I newspaper. They repaired to Rees-mogg’s house for champagne. But in the ensuing days, “a sobering thought began to strike: what if they had just lost their best chance of achieving Brexit?” With Remainers, emboldened by the scale of the defeat, mobilising to delay Brexit and thwart a no-deal scenario, Eurosceptic MPS are “looking for a ladder to climb down in the form of an EU concession” that allows them to vote for May’s deal after all. Brexiters are right to be nervous, said Rafael Behr in The Guardian. An extension of Article 50 now looks all but inevitable. “Once the totemic date of 29 March has passed without Brexit having happened, the prospect of it never happening feels more realistic.”
Remainers are employing wily tactics, said Ian Dunt on Politics.co.uk. Cooper’s amendment would provide parliamentary time for a private member’s bill that would, in turn, give MPS a vote on delaying Article 50. A bill is easier for MPS to control than an amendment – although “a government really committed to blocking it could probably find a way”. Grieve’s amendment, meanwhile, would allow a minority of MPS to take control of Commons business for one day a week between 12 February and 26 March. This would enable them to, say, table legislation for a second referendum or to hold a series of indicative votes. “That’s the shape of the battlefield in front of us. What happens next is anyone’s guess.”
What we are seeing is a “very British coup”, said Tim Stanley in The Daily Telegraph. The “subtle forces of reaction” are resorting to legislative chicanery to get their way. The no-deal nuclear option is “the only legal guarantee that Brexit will actually happen”, which is why Remainers are so determined to scrap the March deadline, and why May, to her credit, has rightly refused to rule out no deal. This battle of wits would be “fabulous entertainment”, said Paul Goodman on Conservative Home, “were most of the country not heartily sick of it – and were the honouring of the biggest electoral verdict in our country’s history not at stake”.
The legal definition of domestic abuse is to be changed to include economic abuse and psychologically controlling and manipulative behaviour, as part of a major overhaul of the law. Unveiled this week, the Domestic Abuse Bill also contains measures to stop abusers cross-examining their victims in the family courts, and to force the most serious offenders to undergo regular lie detector tests when they are out on licence, to make sure they are complying with the terms of their release. An estimated two million adults a year experience domestic abuse in England and Wales.