James Kirkup James Kirkup

The prospect of a national government should be taken seriously

It’s come a day earlier than I expected, but we are now entering the ‘government of national unity’ phase of the Brexit debacle.

Nicky Morgan, once a Tory Cabinet minister, said this on the Today programme:

‘It may well be that if you end up with a cross-party approach to finding a majority in the House of Commons, it might be that you need a cross-party approach to implementing it.

There have been periods in our history when we have had national unity governments or a coalition for a very specific issue.’

Tom Watson of Labour has made similar noises.

The logic is sound enough: there is almost certainly a majority in the Commons next week to pass Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement in its current form, attached to a Political Declaration that more explicitly commits the UK to seek membership of a customs union with the EU in its future relationship.

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