Mailvox: failure theatre

A British insider interprets the latest Parliamentary procedures concerning Brexit:

HM Government has just cancelled the 13 and 14 March Commons votes for ‘no deal’ and ‘extension’.

The vote on the deal will proceed 12 March. HMG expects to lose by over 100 votes.

No one has said it, but I expect them to have a 3rd ‘meaningful vote’ on 26 March. We’re only having the 12 March vote because the Commons pushed Theresa May into it on 27 Feb.

Attempts to resolve the backstop on the Irish border are going nowhere. Barnier says that HM Attorney General Geoffrey Cox is seeking a legal solution to a political problem. We’ll continue with the ‘failure theatre’ right up to the end.

I think that they would prefer ‘no deal’ to an extension because an extension would require us to hold EU elections, where we would significantly boost the populist bloc.