Is Boris Johnson playing a game of chicken with anti-no-deal Tory MPs? The two sides are locked in a furious standoff over the threat from the Prime Minister that MPs will lose the Tory whip and be prevented from standing for the party at the next election if they back this week’s rebel legislation blocking no deal. That threat, first reported by James Forsyth, might have caused one or two MPs to back down, but it has made others, including Rory Stewart and David Gauke, more defiant. They are insisting that they will vote for the extension legislation this week, even if it means they stop being Conservatives.
The point of a game of chicken is that at some point, the loser veers away. Boris Johnson and his top adviser Dominic Cummings take chicken very seriously, as we can see from the way they are approaching negotiations with the European Union (if you haven’t read Tom Chivers’ piece
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