Brexit discussion thread VIII (Please read OP before posting)

I'm not sure the view of "EU officials" on whether this or that development would amount to a sufficient change to allow another Commons vote are all that relevant. Bercow decides whether a new motion is "substantially the same" as one that has already been voted on. I would have thoght that EU officials are not particularly close to Bercow's thinking, or particularly expert in UK parliamentary procedure so as to predict what Bercow will think.

Ultimately Theresa May has to decide whether whatever the EU offers is enough to allow her to table a third meaningful vote. She will not want to risk the humiliation of tabling it only to have the Speaker rule it out of order, so she needs to make a call on what would or wouldn't be ruled out of order. She'g be very foolish to defer to the opinions of unnamed EU officials on that question.

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Bercow dropped a strong hint that it would take something legal from Brussels to allow another vote, this is just the EU taking that hint.

If so, I'm not convinced they've taken the hint correctly.

The key point here is that Parliament has already considered May's deal (in which term I include the WA, the Pol Dec, the various associated interpretive statements, etc). If May wants to put it to Parliament again, it has to differ in some substantial way.

As far as I can see, a deferred Brexit date is not a substantial difference to the deal itself; it remains exactly the same deal, on exactly the same terms, requiring exactly the same legislation to give effect to it, etc, etc. (My proposal to buy your car for a certain price does not become a substantially different proposal merely because I propose to complete the purchase on Saturday, rather than tomorrow.) And a delay is not really a new feature; it was known last week that even if the deal had been approved them an A50 delay was going to be needed in order to implement it.

And I should say that if Bercow is dropping hints to anybody, it is certainly not to the EU. It is to HMG.

My take on this is that:

- It's HMG which believes (or hopes, at any rate) that the grant of an A50 extension would make May's deal substantially different from what it is today;
- British officials have said as much to EU officials as part of their case for "why the EU should grant us an A50 extension";
- The EU officials are inclined to accept the UK view at face value becuse, after all, UK officials are much better positioned to know how UK parliamentary rules and conventions work in practice than EU officials are;
- UK journalists have heard about this from EU officials rather than from UK officials because the processes of the "secretive, bureaucratic, undemocratic" EU are in fact much more open than the processes of HMG. (Most of what the Uk press hears about the Brexit process comes from the EU side.)
- UK journalists are therefore attributing this view to the Brussels sources from whom they got it, although in fact the Brussels sources have likely got it from UK officials.

Is the view correct? As already indicated, I'm sceptical. I think there may be a bit of wishful thinking going on on the UK side. But also as noted above HMG is better placed to know what will and won't fly not only than EU officials are but also than I am. So it could be correct.