Straight after the government’s epic defeat in the House of Commons on Tuesday night, the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, the Business Secretary, Greg Clark, and the Brexit Secretary, Steve Barclay, held a conference call with business leaders to try to reassure them. The principal worry was about ‘no deal’. The Chancellor’s message of comfort was revealing of where power has shifted to. He emphasised how backbenchers are manoeuvring to stop no deal. In other words, they needn’t take his word that it wasn’t going to happen; they should take parliament’s. It was an admission that the government is no longer in control of Brexit.
Further evidence of this power shift came from Clark, who said the scale of the defeat and the need to reach out to parliament meant that the UK would now end up negotiating a deal that was closer to the EU. Unsurprisingly, given his historic opposition to Brexit, Clark sounded quite upbeat about this prospect.
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