It ought to be astonishing when the chancellor of the exchequer announces that he would consider voting to bring down his own government if it adopts the policy which the party members favour on the most important issue of the day, as Philip Hammond did on Sunday. Nowadays it just seems another reminder of the irrelevance of common sense to parts of the Conservative party and the danger that their fever dream poses to the country as a whole. Throwing off Theresa May has changed nothing significant. But it has made one important thing clearer, which is the fault line along which the party is being broken.
The schism in the Tory party lies between those who are prepared to bid “no deal” and those who are not. The latest round of escalation was precipitated by Boris Johnson, a man whose word no one has reason to trust. That aspect of his character turns out not to bother much of his party. Whether he means it or not, what matters is that he said it and others were forced to try to outbid him, or to repudiate him in terms.
Continue reading...from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2W2iwO9
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