Sign up here to receive the daily news briefing in your inbox every morning with exclusive insight from the BrexitCentral team Boris Johnson again poised to try and trigger an election… Boris Johnson could make a third attempt to trigger a general election as early as today, it is understood. The prime minister is preparing to challenge Jeremy Corbyn to send voters to the polls as soon as another Article 50 extension has been granted by the European Union, a decision that is expected tomorrow. He is likely to lay a motion under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act either tonight or on Monday that would force MPs to decide before the October 31 deadline whether to allow an election. The prime minister met Mr Corbyn, the Labour leader, with their respective chief whips in his Commons office yesterday after Labour offered to facilitate a new timetable for Brexit legislation following the defeat of the original programme motion on Tuesday. Mr Johnson’s opposition to the prospect of making another attempt to pass the Withdrawal Agreement Bill hardened through the day, despite pressure from some cabinet ministers. Instead, he is understood to be determined to make another attempt to secure an election despite two previous failures to secure the two-thirds majority needed under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. An alternative route of seeking to induce a confidence vote in his own government, which requires a simple majority, has been judged too risky but is being held in reserve. – The Times (£) …but faces a growing Tory revolt over going to the polls before Brexit has been delivered… Boris Johnson faces a growing revolt from the Cabinet and backbench Tory MPs over his threat to hold a general election before delivering Brexit. The PM has vowed to force a snap poll if Brussels agrees to Parliament’s request for a new three month-long Brexit delay until January 31. But allies say privately Boris is “torn” over the dilemma of whether to instead try again to pass his landmark Withdrawal Agreement Bill to take Britain out of the EU first. The most ardent proponent for an immediate general election is the PM’s chief adviser in No10, Dominic Cummings. Vote Leave guru Mr Cummings believes holding a nationwide poll before the UK leaves would deliver tens of thousands of pro-Brexit Labour voters in key swing seats, and the Commons will continue to block the deal. But Mr Cummings was looking increasingly isolated as a series of ministers said delivering Brexit must be the priority. As well as angering voters who hate elections, they also fear the damage Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party would do to the Tory vote during a campaign fought with Mr Johnson having failed to deliver on his “do or die” pledge to deliver Brexit by October 31. One Cabinet minister told The Sun: “I want the Bill passed ASAP. We have a majority for it, 30 was strong”. Another Brexiteer Tory minister said: “An election isn’t in our gift. It’s pointless to threaten it. “We have to just do what the British people want and try to get this bill through, even if it takes a month.” Northern Ireland Secretary Julian Smith went public with his preference, saying: “What I want is to listen to Northern Ireland MPs, get a programme motion that is to the satisfaction to the majority of people in this House, and resolve this situation. “I think that is where I feel our responsibility lies.” – The Sun Boris Johnson’s top ream is at war over whether to call an election – Buzzfeed News …as Jeremy Corbyn is also urged by Labour MPs to resist calls for an election… Jeremy Corbyn is facing significant pressure from his own MPs to resist any government calls for an immediate general election, as Labour refused to confirm when they might back such a poll even if a lengthy Brexit extension is agreed. While the official Labour position remains that Corbyn will support an election once the immediate threat of a no-deal Brexit no longer exists, the party leadership is refusing to be pinned down on what reassurances would be needed for this to happen. The deliberate ambiguity is partly caused by extreme anxiety among Labour MPs about the prospect of abandoning the idea of a Brexit referendum for a pre-Christmas election, especially with the party a dozen or so percentage points behind the Conservatives in recent polls. One Labour backbencher told the Guardian they believed up to half the parliamentary party could rebel if Corbyn decided to whip his MPs to support a motion seeking an election under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act (FTPA). Another MP described the opposition to an election within Labour as “very strong and widespread”. A party source added: “It’s fair to say there’s not a great appetite for an election in December.” – Guardian …while a meeting between Johnson and Corbyn over the Brexit Bill timetable reached no conclusion Boris Johnson has met Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn amid uncertainty over what happens next with Brexit. The meeting comes after MPs rejected the PM’s plan to fast-track a bill to implement his deal through Parliament. During PMQs, Mr Johnson said MPs had “willed the end but not the means” and it was now the EU’s decision whether to grant an extension beyond 31 October. Mr Corbyn told the Commons MPs must “have the necessary time to improve on this worse-than-terrible treaty”. The BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg says she understands nothing was agreed at the meeting on Wednesday morning. Labour was keen to discuss a different timetable for the Brexit bill, while the PM wanted to know what Mr Corbyn would do if the EU refused to grant an extension, she added. A Labour Party spokesperson said: “Jeremy Corbyn reiterated Labour’s offer to the prime minister to agree a reasonable timetable to debate, scrutinise and amend the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, and restated that Labour will support a general election when the threat of a no-deal crash-out is off the table.” No 10 said there had been “no meeting of minds” between the two men and no further talks were currently planned. – BBC News European leaders expected to grant Brexit delay… Boris Johnson will be left waiting for the EU’s terms for a further Brexit extension until Friday, with signs of momentum building behind Donald Tusk’s plan for a delay up to 31 January. The French government has privately voiced its concerns about taking the pressure off MPs to vote for the deal, which they believe could be ratified in 15 days, but EU sources said the bloc was seeking a “solution that works for all” and avoids a no deal exit. Tusk, the president of the European council, told Johnson in a phone call on Wednesday his reasons for “recommending the EU27 accept the UK request for an extension”. The debate among the EU27 is whether to follow Tusk’s lead and offer a three-month delay that could be terminated following ratification of the deal, or seek to put pressure on MPs with a shorter extension, an idea raised by France’s president, Emmanuel Macron. Tusk has suggested leaders can avoid convening for a summit if they agree to the three months sought in the prime minister’s letter of request through a “written procedure”. After a 90-minute meeting of EU ambassadors on Wednesday evening, there appeared to be momentum behind Tusk’s strategy. “All agreed on the need for an extension to avoid a no-deal Brexit”, an EU source said. “The duration of an extension is still being discussed. There was a strong preference to use a written procedure to take the final decision.” – Guardian Brexit, Brexit go away, come again another day – Politico …with Ireland backing a new Article 50 extension until February… Ireland has backed backed a further extension of Article 50 that would see the Brexit deadline delayed until February next year. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar confirmed that he supported the three-month delay during a phone conversation with European Council president Donald Tusk on on Wednesday morning. A consensus seems to be emerging in Brussels behind a three month extension that would end on 31 January – though some countries, led by France, are uneasy. “At this stage, we consider that there is no justification for a new extension,” Yves Le Drian, the French foreign minister, had said on Tuesday afternoon ahead of votes in the House of Commons. But other voices in Brussels have backed the plan pushed by Mr Tusk. David Sassoli, the European Parliament president, on Wednesday said it would be “advisable” to back the three month extension, adding: “This extension will allow the UK to clarify its position and the European Parliament to exercise its role.” – Independent EU considers request for last-ditch Brexit extension – Radio France Internationale …as Moody’s warns a further Brexit delay would be ‘negative’ for the UK… The latest delay to Brexit leaves the UK mired in uncertainty and delivers a potential blow to the country’s creditworthiness, one of the world’s biggest ratings agencies warned on Wednesday. The verdict of Moody’s follows a House of Commons vote against Boris Johnson’s rapid timetable for passing his EU Withdrawal Bill, making an exit on October 31 virtually impossible. European Union leaders are deciding on the length of extension to grant the UK and the prime minister has “paused” the passage of the legislation. Moody’s rates the UK’s sovereign debt at AA2 after a downgrade in 2017 following the Brexit vote. Further cuts to its rating could force the Treasury to pay more interest when raising debts on the international markets, because investors would be worried about the risks. Colin Ellis, managing director at Moody’s, said the likelihood of the UK leaving the EU with a deal is higher than it has been for some time. But he added: “Significant uncertainties remain around the timing and eventual outcome of Brexit, which is likely going to weigh on spending, investment and hiring decisions in the UK for some time, a clear credit negative.” – Telegraph (£) …while throwing into doubt millions of commemorative 50p coins Plans for millions of 50p coins to commemorate Brexit day have been thrown into doubt after MPs derailed Boris Johnson’s chances of fast-tracking his deal through parliament by Halloween. Sajid Javid, the chancellor, announced plans for new coins to mark Brexit earlier this year – shortly before Mr Johnson won the Conservative leadership contest – following enthusiastic calls from Conservative MPs. But with the prime minister’s Brexit timetable in doubt, and the UK awaiting a verdict from the EU on the length of a third extension, the Treasury refused to confirm whether production had begun on the first tranche of coins. The confusion came after it emerged that three million of the coins were to be imprinted with the Brexit date of 31 October and ready to spend by the end of the month. – Independent Unionists slam Northern Ireland Secretary over Irish Sea checks… Unionist MPs have branded the government’s approach to Northern Ireland in the Brexit talks “despicable” and a “betrayal”. In his first appearance before the Northern Ireland affairs select committee, Julian Smith, the Northern Ireland secretary, was questioned about plans to require businesses selling or transiting goods from the region to Britain to complete special paperwork in order to trade post-Brexit. Smith said the checks would be minimal and the focus should be on the “great opportunities” awaiting Northern Ireland. He said the government would work with businesses to ensure the withdrawal agreement bill would as far as possible allow unfettered trade between Northern Ireland and Britain. But Ian Paisley Jr, the DUP MP for North Antrim, said it was disgraceful to expect any business to complete paperwork for goods being sold in “our country, not a foreign country”. In a tense exchange, he asked Smith where he lived. When Smith told him he lived in North Yorkshire and London, Paisley said: “If you had to move goods from North Yorkshire to London and have to fill in a form, you’d feel pretty aggrieved about that. We are in the same country. It is disgraceful.” – Guardian …but the DUP will back Boris Johnson’s Queen’s Speech tonight despite Brexit deal anger Democratic Unionist Party MPs will back Boris Johnson’s Queen’s Speech despite their anger over his Brexit deal. A DUP source confirmed its MPs would back the prime minister’s legislative agenda, despite earlier suggestions the party’s anger over the Brexit deal could see them tear up their confidence and supply deal with the Tories. The backing of the party’s 10 MPs gives Johnson a much better chance of getting his Queen’s Speech through the Commons in a crunch Thursday vote. And the PM is likely to welcome the DUP’s backing at a time when relations with the Northern Irish party have nearly reached breaking point. On Tuesday, the DUP’s Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson said he “nearly choked” at Johnson’s claims about the effect of the Brexit deal on Northern Ireland. And Wilson on Wednesday signalled that his party would go on opposing the deal as it stands, having tabled amendments which would effectively wreck the withdrawal agreement bill (WAB) that forms the centrepiece of the Queen’s Speech. – Huffington Post Sajid Javid says Budget will go ahead on November 6th – and Government is still aiming for Halloween Brexit deadline Sajid Javid confirmed the budget will go ahead on November 6 – and that the Government is still working to push through Brexit by October 31. Appearing on Peston on Wednesday, the Chancellor said the Cabinet were committed to pushing through Brexit legislation, despite the defeat on Tuesday on the proposed Brexit timetable. On the upcoming budget, the Chancellor confirmed the November 6 date was going ahead – despite earlier reports it may be delayed. He told Peston: “When I announced the date, November 6, the only situation where there won’t be a budget would be if there was a no-deal outcome – now we can’t rule that out at this point, but we’re on track to have a budget. “The budget remains [November 6]. When it comes to Brexit, we are working as much and as hard as we can to still do that on October 31, despite what happened in parliament. “It’s just worth recalling that when the new government came into office some three months ago and Boris Johnson became prime minister, everyone said ‘you’re not going to be able to reopen this agreement, you’re not going to be able to get rid of the backstop, you’re not going to be able to reach a new deal’. “But we’ve delivered on all three… This government achieved a Brexit deal, but then parliament decided to delay the deal. We can get it done by October 31.” – ITV News Brexit-blocking ex-Tories such as Philip Hammond will be barred from rejoining the Conservative Party Philip Hammond and the other Brexit-blocking ex-Tories who ended the prospect of Brexit being delivered by October 31 will be barred from rejoining the party. A senior Tory source told The Sun that they will effectively be blacklisted for as long as Boris Johnson is leader after voting down his three-day timetable on Tuesday night to push his Brexit deal through Parliament by Halloween. But in contrast the 12 ex-Tories who voted with the Government in Tuesday’s Brexit showdown will be offered a route back into the party. The PM sacked 20 of the ex-Tories after they backed the Brexit-delaying Benn Act last month and another – Amber Rudd – quit in protest days later. If they don’t have the Tory whip at the next election then they will be barred from standing from the party. But Downing Street has assured them that there is “a long ladder back” and will get the whip restored as long as they help the PM get his Brexit deal through the Commons. A senior Tory source told The Sun tonight: “Since they had the whip removed some MPs have consistently voted to support a deal while others have not. “The chief has been clear there is a long ladder back and it’s obvious some MPs have acted like Conservative MPs doing their best to deliver on the referendum, and others have not.” – The Sun Brexit 2019 polls latest: Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party has lost edge to Boris’s Tories When Nigel Farage launched the Brexit Party earlier this year, its instant success took the political world by surprise. Now, new polls are showing a dip in support as Leave voters abandon their Brexit champion to back Boris Johnson. The Brexit Party rose to prominence amidst growing frustration around former prime minister Theresa May’s leadership, winning Tory supporters with its promise of a clean Brexit. However, polls now show support has swung back to the Tories under Boris Johnson – and more Leavers now want a Brexit deal than none at all. The poll was conducted between October 17 and 18, and polled 1,609 British adults. Of the Leave voters who were familiar with the details of the deal, the poll showed two thirds – 67 percent – think Parliament should vote to accept the new Brexit deal. – Express Gina Miller unveils fresh Remainer plot to stop Brexit in ‘imminent’ general election Gina Miller outlined a new technique she has developed for Remain voters to stop the UK leaving the EU under a hard Brexit in a general election. The businesswoman referred to a website she has created that gives Remain voters the “opportunity to lend your vote in tactical voting”. Sky News presenter Adam Boulton accused Gina Miller of trying to “stop Brexit” altogether, to which she argued “everything that happens in the House has to be legal”. Mr Boulton asked: “And you’re running a website for tactical voting, what’s that all about?” “We will say to Remain voters that if you want your voice heard in a first-past-the-post system then there’s an opportunity to lend your vote in a tactical voting recommended position of where you think your vote would be most affected if you want to remain in the EU.” Mr Boulton remarked: “So you’re quite open, because when you took the original case for the meaningful vote you said it wasn’t about stopping Brexit. “All I’m saying is your position now is you are campaigning to stop Brexit full stop.” – Express David Frost: Boris Johnson’s Brexit man He’s the man who brought home a Brexit deal for Boris Johnson — and his reward is to carry on negotiating. The UK prime minister now wants his EU adviser, David Frost, to handle the next phase of the United Kingdom’s negotiations with the European Union: discussions about the future trading relationship between Britain and the bloc. Officials on both sides, UK ministers and Brexiteer MPs highlight the key role that Frost, a former diplomat-turned-adviser, played in securing an agreement with Brussels last Thursday and selling that plan to the Tory Party. Whether or not that deal ever comes into force — it is currently paused after MPs said they wanted more time to scrutinize it — Frost delivered something many said was impossible: a renegotiated deal that both EU leaders and a majority in the House of Commons can support, at least for now. A No. 10 official said Johnson is hopeful that Frost, known to close colleagues as “Frosty,” would continue working on trade negotiations, although the official hinted he has yet to accept the offer. Not everyone however will welcome him as a trade negotiator, should Johnson continue in office long enough to oversee the next phase in the Brexit talks. Two Brexiteer MPs, who spoke to Politico on condition of anonymity, have not given Frost their unqualified support and want a trade expert to be given a key role in phase two. One MP cited Crawford Falconer, the UK’s chief trade negotiation adviser in the Department for International Trade, as a potential candidate. – Politico James Forsyth and Katy Balls: New deal, new tactics Ever since Boris Johnson became Prime Minister his opponents — both inside and outside his party — have been convinced that his ‘do or die’ pledge to have the UK out of the EU by 31 October would be his greatest vulnerability. ‘We’ll make him miss this deadline,’ they thought, ‘and his credibility will be shot.’ Brexit party voters would write him off as another blusterer from a Tory party unable to deliver. He seemed to think so too, repeatedly saying that ‘extension means extinction’. His enemies have now succeeded; the defeat of the government’s Brexit timetable in Tuesday night’s vote means it is near impossible for him to meet that pledge. He might be hoping for a miracle (these can happen, as his deal showed) but parliament has won. It has forced his government to ask for an extension from the EU, and Donald Tusk says he is encouraging EU leaders to grant one. Yet far from being politically dead, Boris Johnson finds himself in a stronger position than he was on the day he became Prime Minister. The Brexit deal he has struck with the EU has changed everything. It not only garnered the support of a majority of MPs at its second reading, but more importantly it is a deal that Leavers broadly welcome. Every Tory Brexiteer in the Commons voted for it, every cabinet minister is fully signed up to it; and initial polling suggests that the general public back it too — more say that they support the deal than oppose it. Suddenly the Tories are occupying the common ground of British politics. This means that despite Johnson’s parliamentary impotence, he is in a strong position for whatever comes next. ‘Everything is now better,’ says a cabinet minister. With the Withdrawal Agreement Bill ‘in limbo’ after MPs rejected the government’s speedy timetable, No. 10 is pushing for a general election. This would offer Boris Johnson two advantages. First, he can present himself as trying to ‘get Brexit done’ but being thwarted by parliament. Secondly, the Brexit deal offers complete reassurance to Tories worried about an imminent no-deal. As the Prime Minister told MPs on Tuesday night: ‘One way or another, we will leave the EU with this deal to which this House has just given its assent.’ A smooth, orderly, amicable Brexit is a much easier sell in those affluent constituencies which the Tories are defending against the Liberal Democrats. The unity can be seen within the parliamentary party, with every single Tory MP this week voting for this deal at second reading; something unimaginable under Theresa May. – James Forsyth and Katy Balls for The Spectator Asa Bennett: Macron is not going to bail out Boris. The PM will have to save Brexit from the Remainers himself Despite persuading MPs to support his Brexit deal in principle last night, Boris Johnson’s failure to see his fast timetable approved proved so awkward that he decided not to push on with his legislation while he rang around his European counterparts to remind them how much he hated the idea of further delay. EU leaders have been mulling the request from the UK Government, forced by Hilary Benn’s so-called “Surrender Act”, to push back the deadline to 31 January 2020. Donald Tusk has understandably concluded from Mr Johnson’s parked Brexit bill that Westminster is in no state to ratify the deal anytime soon. And so the European Council leader has suggested that the EU27 needs to get on and agree to the delay, suggesting the case for it was so self-evident that it need only be agreed in a quick write-around. But Brexiteer spirits will have soared on hearing that Emmanuel Macron reportedly opposes the European Council president’s recommendation to grant the three-month extension, which raises the possibility that EU leaders could have to thrash this out in person over a special Brexit summit. After striking up an entente très cordiale with Mr Johnson, could the French President bail him out by vetoing any extension and thereby set the United Kingdom on course to leave the EU without a deal next Thursday? I can’t imagine it, even if Eurosceptic MPs are yet again pinning their hopes quixotically on a rogue member state like Poland doing it. The President has constantly poured scorn on the idea of extending Article 50, kicking up a fuss both times it has been considered this year, but agreeing to it in the end each time. President Macron is not going to bail out Mr Johnson over Brexit. – Asa Bennett for the Telegraph (£) David Collins: Only a Brexit blocker could object to Boris Johnson’s deal – it provides the easiest, safest and fastest route out of the stalemate The gaping inconsistency between what many politicians promised on Brexit and how they are now behaving has grown so brazen that it is scarcely believable. To give at least some of them the benefit of the doubt, rather than engaging in outright deception, perhaps these people do not understand the nature of the legal obligations contained in the Withdrawal Agreement, meaning its implications in terms of the UK’s future relations with the EU and the kind of laws we can expect in the UK once we have regained our sovereignty. The Prime Minister’s Withdrawal Agreement is by no means a flawless piece of statecraft, but it is light years better than the one Theresa May brought back and it deserves the full support of parliament. The new agreement takes us out of the customs union and allows us to pursue our own free trade policy. It removes the jurisdiction of the ECJ, at least for Great Britain, and ends free movement. Commitments to maintain a level playing field contained in the earlier treaty have been softened, allowing the UK to govern itself the way that it wishes as soon as the transition period ends. The UK’s chosen strategy will represent a trade-off between the efficiencies which economists have told us will arise from breaking free from the EU’s proscriptive anti-business rules and retaining low-friction access to the EU’s lucrative markets along with less administrative friction at the GB/NI sea border. But these are decisions for the UK parliament to make after the Brexit process has concluded. It has nothing to do with the Prime Minister’s Withdrawal Agreement, which by most measures would seem to be the easiest, safest, fastest route out of the Brexit stalemate which is fast becoming intolerable. So unless they are really Brexit blockers in disguise, as sadly many of them appear to be, those MPs who are opposing the deal should keep their powder dry for battles to be held on other days. – Professor David Collins for the Telegraph (£) Sherelle Jacobs: Fatuous Remainer MPs have just become the useful idiots of the Leave cause The trouble with the Remainers is not their arrogant inability to grasp when they have lost, but their blindness to when they have won. So when Boris Johnson triumphantly returned from Brussels clutching the best bad deal possible, the eyes of MPs gunged up so quickly with spiteful, green anger that they failed to spot their finest chance to wreck Brexit. The Prime Minister has negotiated the best Brino that Britain could hope for in today’s wretched political circumstances. But the deal is still insanity wrapped in victory. It leaves Britain kowtowing to the rulings of a foreign judicial power, the ECJ, for years to come (a surrender of sovereignty unheard of in global relations). It also clumsily butchers the Union, sentences our fishing industry to almost certain death, and – as fiercely as Tories deny it – theoretically commits Britain to a future relationship on Brussels’ terms. This Tory deal, sadly, puts off everything and resolves very little. Kick the can too far down the road and you end up at the beginning. The Withdrawal Agreement paves the way for a Brexit so pointless and damaging, that, months from now, when Britain realises it is still trapped at amber with a Parliament that refuses to have an election, or break out of limbo on WTO rules, calls for a second referendum will become deafening. Perhaps paradoxically, the logical, long-term plan for Remainers who hate Brexit would be to let the Withdrawal Agreement pass and then deny an election and sabotage the second stage of negotiations. But, with victory in reach, the liberal snobs’ visceral hatred for populism and weakness for pedantry has prevailed. – Sherelle Jacobs for the Telegraph (£) Allister Heath: We need a general election now to clear out this Parliament of wreckers There are no perfect solutions, no easy answers, no guarantees that Armageddon will be avoided. But for Boris Johnson, and for all Brexiteers, an election in the run-up to Christmas is now the least risky way forward. It would represent yet another roll of the dice, of course, but the odds of ultimate triumph would be greater than for any other course of action. And the most likely mechanism to achieve this timetable, paradoxically, is if the EU agrees to extend the Brexit deadline all the way to 31 January. Hold on a second. Why would any Brexiteer want Johnson to be forced into breaking his “do or die”, leave by October 31 promise? The answer, simply, is that this has now become the least bad option given this broken Parliament’s intransigence. A lengthy delay was the point of the destructive, anti-constitutional Benn Act, but it could well end up finishing off the Remainers who supported it, in a beautiful twist of fate. It’s not just that they will be blamed for failing to vote Boris’ deal through – a three month extension is also the only way to bulldoze them out of the way. – Allister Heath for the Telegraph (£) Leo McKinstry: Boris’s stock rises every time the House of Cowards frustrates our wishes At the House of Cowards, it is business as usual this week. Confusion, paralysis and obstinacy still reign at the Commons, where MPs have indulged in yet more delaying tactics over Brexit. Parliament should be a shining beacon for democracy but it has been transformed by a bunch of mediocrities into an arena for obstructing the electorate’s will. On Tuesday evening, MPs had a golden opportunity finally to resolve the Brexit crisis when they voted on the Prime Minister’s deal with the EU. For a brief moment, the flame of optimism burned as they decided in principle, by a majority of 30, to back his deal. Having made this apparent breakthrough, the House then dramatically undid its good work by rejecting the timetable for the passage of the Bill, on the spurious grounds that more time is needed for debate, even though the Parliamentary discussion of Brexit has dragged on for more than three years. As a result of this depressing move, there is little chance that the Government can meet its target of leaving by October 31. Further stalemate now beckons. The EU seems likely to grant a delay until the end of January 2020, providing yet more scope for anti-Brexiteers to engage in wrecking tactics. The more that Boris is frustrated in this task by Parliament, the more his stock rises. – Leo McKinstry for the Express Isabel Hardman: The Labour renegade – an interview with the unlikely Brexiteer Caroline Flint Nothing in Caroline Flint’s CV would have marked her out as someone who would end up marshalling 19 of her fellow Labour MPs through the ‘aye’ lobby to vote for Boris Johnson’s deal. One of the original ‘Blair babes’, she went on to become Gordon Brown’s minister for Europe. She campaigned for Remain in the referendum but this week she ended up telling MPs that ‘the EU is not God’ while fending off accusations that she is the devil. One commentator called her ‘a heroine for those seeking to turbo-charge Thatcherism’. He didn’t mean it kindly. When we meet in her office, on another one of the supposed Brexit make-or-break days, she is preparing for further battle. ‘I just think: hang on a minute, I’m the moderate here,’ she says. ‘I’m trying to stop no-deal by getting a deal. Accepting that we’ve had a vote to leave the European Union.’ Labour, she says, owes Brussels nothing. ‘The EU didn’t protect us from Thatcher. It didn’t protect us from privatisation. It didn’t protect us from the sale of council houses. And it didn’t protect us from our mining communities being devastated. Labour governments stopped Tory policies, not the EU.’ The surest means of getting another Labour government, she says, is for it to back Brexit now. Her obstinacy can be traced to a fateful decision she made while campaigning for Remain in June 2016: that, if her side lost, she resolved she would respect the result. ‘I had conversations with MPs, with my family and others asking: if I campaign for Remain, what if it goes the other way?’ The ‘over–confident arrogance of the Remain campaign,’ she says, led it to make some terrible decisions. She describes sitting in Remain campaign meetings where every time she suggested that a certain tactic wouldn’t work in Doncaster, ‘it was like tumbleweed going around the room’. – Isabel Hardman for The Spectator Frank Lawton: Why a second referendum would be a first class mistake One day I suspect we will see the campaign for a second referendum in the same light as Communism, the Reliant Robin and that tattoo of your Ex’s face: an obviously bad idea in hindsight, but one that exercised a baffling appeal at the time. When, in many years, Brexit is actually ‘done’ and we look back upon these febrile times, we will ask ourselves, why? Why did anyone think a second referendum was the right way forward? Why did the same people who argued the first referendum should not have happened think that the answer was to hold another one? Why did anyone think this would result in national healing, in calm, in closure? Why did the same people who decried the creep of populism in the main political parties in one breath, in the next proclaim the nakedly populist rhetoric of a ‘People’s Vote’, and think this was some sort of remedy? Did people just not notice, or was the public sphere so degraded that bad faith arguments were simply accepted as the norm? Whether these questions will be of merely academic interest lies in the gift of MPs and voters alike, with Labour’s election manifesto advocating another referendum (in order that they can campaign against their own renegotiated deal), and Liberal Democrat MPs calling for one until they get into power, at which point they would simply revoke Article 50. Now, I am someone who has serious reservations about Brexit and the direction of travel. But if you worry about where the county is now, just wait until you see the disastrous place a second referendum would leave us. – Frank Lawton for CapX Brexit in Brief There are worse places for Brexit to be than the purifying fires of purgatory – Joe Burgis for the Telegraph (£) How Brexit could benefit the UK’s pubs and clubs – Get Britain Out’s Harry Todd for The Commentator To get Brexit over the line the Government needs to calm down – Garvan Walshe for ConservativeHome