The Pizza 5

So five Cabinet Ministers who voted for Brexit are staying in the government. They tell us they do not like the draft Withdrawal Agreement, and will try to get the PM to seek amendments to it.

There are three problems with this approach. The first is there is no sign the PM wants to renegotiate. Secondly, based on the PM’s determination to advance this draft, the EU has made clear it doesn’t want to renegotiate. The third is the Agreement is so bad just changing some words on the Irish backstop does not fix it. The document is seriously rigged against us and has to be scrapped. It leaves us powerless in many ways. Far from leaving the EU it keeps us chained to their rules, payments and Customs Union, with no unilateral way out. The only way the EU would be persuaded to renegotiate is if the UK government said we were leaving without signing the Withdrawal Agreement.

Ministers have to support this unacceptable Agreement all the time they stay in. They will be watched particularly closely by the media and the PM now we know they are trying to alter the policy. They would be better off resigning together. Then we would see the simple truth. You cannot want to leave the EU on 29 March 2019 and join or stay in this government. No Leave voter could possibly accept this deal as giving us what we voted for. It appears a lot of Remain voters also think it is a bad deal.