James Forsyth James Forsyth

What will be May’s Plan B?

The Cabinet aren’t even waiting for the meaningful vote to be lost to start discussing Plan Bs. As I say in The Sun this morning, multiple ministers are expecting a major row when Cabinet meets on Tuesday morning—ahead of the meaningful vote.

The row will be about what to do once the government has lost. One faction in the Cabinet believes that, in the words of one Secretary of State, ‘the only realistic route to go down is to force it into the EU’s hands’.

This would involve devising a motion that made clear under what conditions parliament would back the deal. Then saying to the EU, if you want to avoid no deal this is what we need to address. One Cabinet Minister who supports this approach says, ‘They don’t have the agility or the time to construct that for Tuesday.

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