A Parliament veto on Brexit would guarantee a stinker of a deal

Theresa May is warning Tory rebels that if Parliament gets a meaningful vote on Brexit, the European Union will be ‘incentivised’ to offer the UK a ‘bad deal’. She is right. But that doesn’t mean the Prime Minister should dismiss the prospect of the House of Lords inflicting a second defeat on the government, with peers today set to back an amendment requiring Parliament to endorse the UK’s final Brexit deal. May should, in contrast, turn what looks like an inconvenience to her political and diplomatic advantage.

Theresa May responded to the first Parliamentary defeat to the government’s Article 50 bill, on an amendment designed to guarantee residency rights for all EU citizens currently living in the UK, by insisting her plan to trigger Article 50 before the end of March ‘remains unchanged’. She could say this because even if a dozen or more Tory MPs rebel, countless Labour members are likely to vote with the government, petrified that being seen to obstruct Brexit will go down badly in the party’s northern heartlands.