Let’s get back down to basics –

Mrs May is within sight of a good Brexit deal. All she needs now from the intransigent Mandarins in Brussels is a tight, legally enforceable codicil to the Withdrawal Agreement that we won’t be trapped in a permanent Northern Ireland Backstop, and for the Tory & DUP hardliners to agree that this will do the trick.

Tusk and his EU cronies are currently stonewalling May as a direct result of the hostile anti-Brexit briefings engineered by senior Remainers in the Labour and Tory camps over the past 2 years. They’ve even been hoodwinked into believing that Brexit can be stopped.

Comrade Corbyn’s cynical ploy came to a head today with the offer of his support to May’s proposed deal subject to the impossible acceptance of five conditions. Two of his conditions are agreement to a Customs Union with the EU & a Single Market sign-up. Both red lines to Mrs May & which Corbyn knows are anathema to Leavers as acceptance of these would preclude us doing separate trade deals with other nations AND we would have no say in future EU negotiations on trade!

Corbyn’s offer is a no-goer.

So Messrs Johnson, Rees-Mogg with other hard-liners, and the DUP must now take a step back and think long and hard about their rigid insistence that the Backstop must be removed in its entirety. If Brexit is lost because of their inflexibility, and this could easily happen, they will bear a heavy responsibility for which they would never be forgiven.

Encouraging for Mrs May are signs that the more reasonable Labour MP’s could support her in return for a Workers Bill of Rights, and a Community Development Fund, both of which are dear to their hearts.

Finally, business does not deserve to be kept in the dark on how to best gear up for the future and must be given certainty as a matter of urgency. As we all know, this is vital for jobs and investment.

May deserves success for her unstinting efforts to achieve a Brexit as fair to all as possible in invidious circumstances.