After a five-hour Cabinet meeting, Theresa May emerged from Number 10 to say that the Cabinet have decided to back the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration. She admitted that the debate had been ‘impassioned’, which is presumably code for an argument. I gather that about a third of the Cabinet spoke against her deal. The choices, she said, had been difficult, particularly when it came to Northern Ireland. Sajid Javid and Jeremy Hunt are understood to have spoken against it – to have the Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary against you is quite something.
May then immediately moved to frame the choice as between her deal, no deal and no Brexit. This is how Number 10 will try and sell this agreement over the next few weeks. It is, frankly, the best way for her to try and get MPs to vote for this agreement: not by selling its merits, but by saying it’s better than the alternative.
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