MV3 rejected - now what?

The government lost by 344 votes to 286, a majority of 58. The May deal was rejected for the third time. So now what?

On Monday, the Letwin Parliament meets again. Last time they met, they looked at the eight possibilities and rejected all eight. Sigh.

On Monday, they could take most of those off the table, based on the ones that were worst, and then vote on the three most promising.

But first ... the petition with nearly 6 million signatures calling for Revoke, will be debated. I think it will be rejected, but the result will be closer than the rejections of the May Deal. Previously, that was defeated by 184 to 293. I think it will be defeated again, but not by so much.


Then the Letwin Parliament sits, and I think it will consider:

Customs union, previously defeated 265 to 271
Labour plan – previously defeated 237 to 307
Revoke article 50 – previously defeated 184 to 293

The awkward squad (the ERG) will continue to squawkward, and Farage will moan and groan, but the fact is, we need to make a decision about this, and "No deal" was previously defeated 160 to 400. Plus, it does nothing to preserve the committments we made in the Good Friday agreement.

And my best guess for what could come out of this, would be the customs union, which is also part of the Labour plan (and, by the way, it doesn't violate the Good Friday agreement). But to get there, I think May must go, new General Election, and when we have that sorted, we can decide which of the realistic options we want (and by realistic, I mean that the EU is likely to accept, not the pie in the sky of "they'll give us everything we ask for because we own the only unicorn in Europe"). So, for example, if we go for the "Norway" option, we can reasonably hope that the EU will accept it because of the precedent.

And should we have a "confirmatory" vote? A "people's" vote? A second referendum?

I think that's a really bad idea, because look what happened last time. The 2016 referendum specified leaving the EU, and the Norway option fulfils that specification. Please, let's not ask the people again.

But scrapping the May Deal and not crashing out, and having a general election, and getting a "Norway option" agreed, will take more than a couple of weeks, so while that is happening, we should revoke article 50, because there's no sane alternative (praying for time to stop isn't going to work).

Then, when we've firmed up what we want, we can invoke Article 50 again, and leave with grace and agreement, and settle down to enjoy all the unicorns that the last few years have earned us.

So who will be the next PM?

Not me, that's for sure.