The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 21 March 2019

issue 23 March 2019

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Theresa May, the Prime Minister, wrote to Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council, asking for a delay of the date for Brexit. She had been wondering whether to solicit a third ‘meaningful vote’ before or after going off to the EU summit in Brussels on Thursday. Heaps of money had been put aside to buy off the DUP and unreal talk had been launched about the Vienna Convention providing a way out of the Irish backstop. But now, asked if Britain was in a crisis, a No. 10 spokesman said: ‘That situation has come to pass.’

The tragicomedy of Brexit had taken an unexpected turn after John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, lobbed in a grenade by declaring that ‘What the government cannot legitimately do is resubmit to the House the same proposition — or substantially the same proposition — as that of last week, which was rejected by 149 votes.’

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