With just a few days to go before the ballot closes in the Tory leadership race we are none the wiser as to how Boris Johnson intends to deliver Brexit.
We know that we will leave “do or die” by October 31 and we know, thanks to last night’s hustings, that the Irish backstop is now “dead.”
But Johnson has yet to say how he intends to negotiate a revised deal with the EU that will lead to an orderly departure beyond saying it can be done if we are sufficiently optimistic.
A no deal Brexit – once dismissed as an impossibility by the Brexiteers – is now the default policy.
Were this to come about it would see jobs and prosperity sacrificed for the sake of Tory survival.
Johnson appears to be gambling that Brexit fatigue will be sufficient to get his unspecified plans through Parliament.
This assumes that a sufficient number of Labour and Conservative MPs are so weary of the whole process they will now vote for anything that wishes the problem away.
This fatigue, it is hoped, will extend to the EU and Ireland in particular who will, despite evidence to contrary, apparently buckle in the face of Johnson’s ebullience.
(Image: Getty Images)
At some point Jeremy Corbyn must ask himself why Labour is still embroiled in a vicious and divisive row about anti-semitism.
The leadership insists it has put new measures in place and that, so far, the number found guilty of anti-semitism is just 0.06% of the total membership.
They can also claim that Islamophobia in the Tory ranks does not get the same degree of attention.
Though this is a curious argument from a party that should want to be held to the highest standards.
Just because your neighbour’s house is a tip doesn’t excuse you of responsibility for clearing up your own home.
Corbyn has repeatedly said he is opposed to all forms of hatred and bigotry and I have never doubted his sincerity of this. Yet his party is still dogged by allegations of anti-semitism.
The latest developments saw four senior Labour peers offer to advise on a new complaints system and 200 current and former Labour staffers write a letter complaining about the way the whistleblowers in the Panorama programme had been treated.
(Image: PA)
The more the anti-semitism row persists the more it is drowning out Labour’s core message and the more the leadership believe they are the victims of a vendetta by the party’s old guard working with a right-wing media to bring down the Corbyn project.
Next week the shadow Cabinet will discuss anti-semitism before what will inevitably be another heated meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party.
Corbyn desperately needs to get on the front foot on this.
He may feel wrongly done by but in the end this can only be resolved by showing some leadership.
Today’s agenda:
9.30am – Theresa May chairs Cabinet.
10am – Chief Inspector of Prisons Peter Clarke is before the Justice select committee.
11am – Michael Gove speech at Kew Gardens, London, on the environment.
11.30am – Greg Clark takes his final Business, Enterprise and Industrial Strategy questions.
2.45pm – Sir Ivan Rogers is questioned by the Foreign Affairs committee on Brexit.
What I am reading:
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