Westminster Insiders on Parliament's Extremely Chaotic Brexit Week

Hey! Hello! Welcome back to [gestures vaguely towards Parliament] ugh, you know. Since coming back from conference season we’ve had: Boris Johnson, who was not going to get a deal until he did! The DUP voting with the government until they didn’t! The EU not going to grant a Brexit extension until they did! And we were not going to get an election soon but we may actually get one by next week. And so on.

It’s been a mess. The House had to sit on a Saturday, and truly we hated to see it. We have no idea what’s going to happen next. So we asked MPs, advisers, political journalists and assorted Westminster insiders to tell us about what’s going to happen next, and whatever the fuck just happened. Enjoy.

“Both sides are happy still as nothing has really happened.”

“This week has played out like an absurdist morality play about the dangers of messing about with the constitution. The government lacks the power either to ratify the deals it negotiates abroad or to break the deadlock via an election. The next majority government must act to restore the executive's proper authority and avoid any repeat of this spoiled child of a Parliament.”

“It's the same shit over and over again, nobody can make a decision and everyone in the bubble is sick of the whole thing. Summer recess feels like a lifetime ago. This parliament is fucking useless and needs to be reshuffled ASAP.”

“What I have noticed this week is that the fatigue of some MPs is evident – the constant abuse and pressure is exhausting and it’s starting to show. It’s a hugely complicated issue to be solved on a deadline in the spotlight and they are only human.”

“I think we’ve gotten used to unpredictability and the fact anything can happen at anytime and you can’t plan anything further than the next day, but it does mean multiple cancelled appointments in the constituency.”

“It’s pretty bad. People are receiving lots of threats, especially women. The nights are drawing in, meaning a potential election would be in the dark and cold. Number 10 is wildly unpredictable and Parliamentary numbers are very tight on anything to do with Brexit.”

“Labour supports a referendum on any deal. Logically, the party should have abstained or voted for the Brexit bill at second reading in order to amend it. The rebels were spot on. But because the media can't be arsed to go into the detail of how legislation is passed, and because people might switch off if it did, Labour MPs were whipped to vote against the bill. So Labour played its cards right, if you accept that everything is about optics.”

“Dominic is safe so long as the Conservatives keep their double-digit lead in the polls. It's easy to take pops at him, and plenty of people have reason to grumble, but he had a plan – no one else had a plan. And the plan seems to be working. Brexit deal – done. Poll lead – done. Clear message – tick. Election victory – who knows? But it's looking good, and we wouldn't be in this favourable a position without him.”

“On the press, I think more should be done to contextualise the Number 10 briefings; report them by all means, but I’d like a bit more of the 'however, Number 10 said this before and it didn’t happen so we might treat with a grain of salt'.”

“I think it’s likely the deal will progress further but end up killed off by amendments which are intolerable to the Tory side. I don’t believe we can break the impasse without a GE or second referendum. In a way it depends on whether the Tories are more afraid of leave voters or their own constituents.”

“God knows what happens next; it’ll depend ultimately on the fight within Labour. My guess is they will stall on an election when challenged, we get an extension until January 31st, and Parliament, especially the Lords, goes wild in attacking the Withdrawal Agreement Bill.”

“I feel like we’re not going to have an election before Christmas. When’s the last time any of those [No10] briefings were right? That said, if Boris goes for it, and doesn’t agree a new Withdrawal Agreement Bill timetable, he’ll get one. Labour MPs always talk a good game when it comes to mass rebellion but they’ll all abide by the whip if Corbyn wants one — which he does.”

“The Government appears to have play a blinder on the Brexit deal, but the question is whether it will start to properly unravel. Like a Budget, it received great headlines the next day, but that's before the IFS get their hands on it. It's too soon to say whether the notion of export charges for goods travelling between GB and Northern Ireland will prove to be the 'Pasty Tax' of the Brexit deal, but [Brexit secretary] Stephen Barclay looked uncomfortable answering questions in the Commons about it, and it was presumably a key reason why Boris Johnson cancelled his appearance in front of the Liaison Committee.

But does it matter? In pre-2016 political terms, policy gaffes like this would. But in the current political environment, Number 10 is right just to plough on. It's a detail that will be lost in all the excitement about the possible election. And the briefings about the City Hall vs Vote Leave split in No10. And the question about whether Corbyn will be booted out before an election. Policy is so pre-2016. Process is now king.”

“Whether Boris Johnson gets his deal through or not, an early election must happen soon. Once that happens, probably producing an entirely unhelpful result, I will want to go to bed with a fuck load of chocolate and basically enter a coma for several decades.”

@youngvulgarian