Bank and Treasury predictions showing UK would be better off within EU undermine PM’s position

Source: Economic forecasts strike blow to Theresa May’s Brexit deal

Surprising? Not!

The 40 reasons to back the Brexit deal published by the Prime Minister to support her deal, are a frantic farrago of frequently fanciful falsehoods, failures, fibs or feeble fabrications.  […]

Source: Falsehoods, Failures, Fibs & Fabrications | Richard Corbett

The voters most badly hit by austerity cuts were those drawn to UKIP and who supported Leave in the EU referendum, argues Thiemo Fetzer (University of Warwick). Recent polling evidence suggests that…

The contrast is quite stark – those areas most exposed to welfare reforms, and which saw a decided swing towards Leave in 2016, see among the largest drops in support for Leave in 2018. This suggests that the pivotal voters that contributed so crucially to the Leave victory are now having a significant change of heart. The question is whether politicians will take their views on board.

Source: Austerity swung voters to Brexit – and now they are changing their minds

This has been a chaotic, febrile week which has managed to unite everyone opposed to the self-serving draft treaty which Theresa May has agreed with the EU. Not even her former chief negotiator, Do…

…

The UK and the EU have perpetrated a stunning deception, one worthy of the most practised of dodgy traders or deceivers – EU citizens’ rights, including those of UK citizens, are not being protected.

As John Halford at Bindmans said when we opened our Millions in the Margins campaign, the UK and the EU “have almost pulled off the most ambitious branding exercise ever undertaken in Europe: presenting arrangements that will ultimately strip millions of their existing fundamental rights as generous rights-granting measures for the minority that will benefit in future.”

Source: A no-deal Brexit is not just for Christmas, or even Easter

But while it was backed by 63% of people who voted Remain, it was backed by just 20% of Leave voters.

Source: Remain would win a new referendum by eight points, poll says

Gee, I wonder why Leavers don’t want to give us a chance to change our minds.

And yes: I know that 17.4 million people voted leave. But 16.1 million voted remain, too. When the margin of victory is that slender, little things mean a lot. And the Banks criminal investigation is more than a little thing. Indeed, we long ago reached the critical mass of evidence where a political class of any statesmanship would have had the courage to suspend the Brexit process and establish beyond question that the original 2016 campaign was conducted fairly. This is no time for bovine paralysis or foot-shuffling timidity. If the satnav is leading you off a cliff, and you think it might have been tampered with, is it really an act of treachery to apply the brakes?

Source: Arron Banks aside, worry about dark money’s effect on our democracy | Matthew d’Ancona

Nearly half of the British public still believe the false claim from the Brexit referendum that the UK sends £350m a week to the EU, despite persistent attempts to debunk the myth. A new study by King’s College London of attitudes to Brexit found that 42 per cent of people who had heard of the claim still believe it is true, while just 36 per cent thought it was false and 22 per cent were unsure.

Source: British public still believe Vote Leave ‘£350m a week to EU’ myth from Brexit referendum

For fuck’s sake!

Former prime minister Edward Heath delivered the most powerful rebuttal in 1996. “I knew Winston Churchill, I worked with him, I stayed with him at his home at Chartwell and I have read his speeches many times. I can assure you that Winston Churchill was no eurosceptic.”

Source: EU ‘founding father’ Churchill would vote against Brexit

… Brexit, in its rhetoric and all its iterations, is a far-right project. Explicitly and stridently anti-immigrant, it nevertheless is happy to accommodate rich migrants: the word “skills” is used, transparently, as a proxy for salary, giving us a brave new world in which an early-career banker has higher skills than an academic with three degrees; and any given MP has almost twice the skills of the most qualified nurse.

Source: The People’s Vote march showed it’s not just leavers who are angry and patriotic | Zoe Williams

Britain is on the brink of a historic calamity, for which the country’s entire political class must share the blame. Brexit, on any currently available terms, will be a disaster. No deal will be worse. The politicians have failed, so the people must take charge. We must have a second referendum.

Source: The Observer view on the urgent need for a fresh vote on Europe | Observer editorial