Brexit Re-vote Reassessed

I am hesitant to mention Brexit again until the House of Commons resumes debate on Tuesday. Brexit has proven to be nothing but zombie gnashing of the teeth. But Yves Smith's post this morning, "Brexit: May’s Sweatbox," is so illuminating it deserves mention.

While the mainstream media is just waking to the possibility that a re-vote might not be the promised land touted the past two-plus years (see "A Second Brexit Vote Could Worsen the Chaos Created by the First," by Max Fisher and Amanda Taub, minders of the neoliberal consensus), Smith susses out MP Yvette Cooper's proposed bill, the current Brexit-exorcising deus ex machina which stipulates "[I]f a deal has not been approved by 7 March, the government would be required to seek an extension of the Article 50 deadline. That would mean asking the EU to postpone the UK’s departure until the end of this year – and EU leaders have said they would agree to an extension if it were to hold another referendum."

Yves Smith throws cold water on the whole charade. Parliament does not have the ability to move legislation on its own without the approval of the government. If parliament wants to move legislation and it cannot because it is opposed by the government, parliament must bring down the government in a vote of no confidence and elections must be held. This is the route Labour leader Jeremey Corbyn attempted last week and was rebuffed because the Tories and the DUP stuck together.

Smith concludes her post:

And thanks to a February break, as I read the Parliamentary calendar, there are 37 sitting days from the January 19 Meaningful Vote to Brexit Day (although May is threatening to cancel the holiday). The only way out of May’s sweatbox looks to be to remove her, and Corbyn threatened to keep lodging no confidence motions. But will MPs knuckle under to May, toss her out, or waste energy in Constitutional gambits which looked doomed to fail?

The hard-line Leavers and the DUP will stick with May to the end because a crash-out is their preferred result, which means that salvation in the form of a successful vote of no confidence must come from Tory Remainers, of which May herself was once one. I don't see how Tory Remainers bolt May to vote with Labour. The crash-out cometh.