If Theresa May dilutes Brexit to please Labour, get set for another huge Tory civil war over Europe

Tom Harris

13 June 2017 • 12:10pm

Theresa May, center, stands next to candidate 'Lord Buckethead' waits for the declaration at her constituency to be made for the general election in Maidenhead, England — Lord Buckethead takes a starring role on Theresa May's cross-party Brexit team Credit: Alastair Grant /AP

It would be difficult to imagine a more disastrous start to Britain’s negotiations to leave the European Union. A government without a majority, the two main parties committed to some form of “hard Brexit” (a term usually employed to describe our departure from the single market and customs union as well as from the EU itself) yet a supposed majority within the new Commons in favour of the opposite: a “soft” or “non” Brexit.
It would be easy – and entirely justified – to blame Theresa May for this latest farce. Let’s just take that as a given and move on to how we intend to shape the forthcoming discussions with our EU partners, most of whom, presumably, are watching events on this side of La Manche with incredulous glee. And who can blame them?
Today’s Telegraph splash will have sent a shiver down the spines of those Conservative MPs whose primary obsession in politics has been to extricate...