In praise of Matt Hancock’s Brexit plan

Matt Hancock is the youngest of the candidates running to be Conservative leader but he’s starting to look like the grown-up in the room. At the weekend he published the outline of a Brexit plan that might just prove the basis for a way ahead that averts either economic or political disaster.

The plan, as I read it, entails accepting the Withdrawal Agreement as negotiated by Theresa May is the only viable way to avoid a No-Deal exit in October and shifting the focus of British ambitions to the Political Declaration on the future relationship between the UK and EU that would follow Withdrawal.

That’s both sensible and smart. Sensible because it accepts the hard realities that any Conservative PM who wants to stay in power has to seek a Brexit deal and avoid No Deal; the Commons and its Speaker will not permit otherwise. Smart because it might actually get some traction in Brussels, where people have been politely suggesting for some time that a conversation about the Political Declaration is perfectly possible.