It has been a fairly extraordinary day for British politics, and it’s only tea time!
Yesterday, the cabinet of UK Conservative government got together to discuss the draft EU withdrawal agreement. After a long and apparently heated discussion, all came out agreeing it was the way to go. At that time, few had seen the nearly 600 page report, let alone read it, but some members of the EU had and apparently agreed with it.
But, as the BBC and others said, and maybe you have been in such a meeting, you agree to things at the time, come out, think about what happened, actually look at the documents, and change your mind.
And so it was. During today, the Brexit secretary and others resigned their posts. Mrs May appeared in the House of Commons and had a hard time, from the opposition (to be expected) and from her own party. It’s a compromise, of course, not a piece of ideology. At the end of it, you have to have a country that still works.
Even before it had become available, Conservative politicians who are hard right Leavers (and also very rich and therefore relatively unaffected by what happens) were condemning the agreement and were talking of letters of no confidence, the PM to resign and leadership challenges, which would probably mean a new PM.