Well there seems to have been a sea change in Labour supporters attitudes, with 86% now wanting a referendum on any deal negotiated. In a democracy, people are allowed to change their minds. If Labour puts a pledge to that effect in their manifesto, they might well win the next election, if there is one any time soon. The issue is will May negotiate a deal this autumn, and will it be passed by the Commons. If not all bets are off.

Index of Frank's Diaries

My comment from July 15th ....

Kabuki theatre

I can't help it, but these last weeks of Downing Street 10 appears to me part of a Kabuki theatre of the Tories with May, Johnson and Davies in the lead roles.

There is no way Michel Barnier and the EU nations will accept the Chequers White Paper as a new start for negotiations. Intent to let the "negotiations" fail and place blame on EU intransigence.

Once the talks have failed, the real Brexiteers will become part of government again, perhaps under a new Tory leader.

That's my take of things that pass. It couldn't be utter stupidity, can it?

'Sapere aude'

I don't know to what extend you have been following our discussions here, but my mainstream 80% probabiity scenario has always been that while May's government may or may not negotiate a deal, it will not be a very substantial deal, not covering future trading relationships, for instance, and that the chances of the House of Commons passing it will be quite small.

Hard line Brexiteers will reject it because of the compromises it will inevitably contain, include not a lot of substance for the £40 Billion up front payment. The DUP will reject it because the possibility of "regularity divergence" does not rule out to possibility of controls "in the Irish sea", and Remainers will reject it because it is so obviously far inferior to full membership or the sort of promises the Leavers made during the referendum campaign.

It's hard to be sure because there are a few Leavers in the Labour party who owe no loyalty to Corbyn and who are crazy enough to think that Brexiteers care for their constituents.

If anything has changed in my perception in the past few weeks it is that the May government has exceeded even my wildest expectations in its own incompetence, with the result that the probability of both a no deal Brexit and of Remain has increased perceptively.

The Labour Party's slumbering advance towards supporting a second referendum has increased both its electability, and the chance of Tory Remainers bring down the Government. Some achievements all round.

Index of Frank's Diaries