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  • We've heard a lot about the Leavers,

  • those people led by Boris Johnson, prime minister,

  • who insist that Britain will leave the European

  • Union by October the 31st, no ifs and buts.

  • But what about the Remainers, those

  • that think there is a chance of stopping Brexit.

  • What chance?

  • Well, there is a very, very narrow window

  • within the British parliamentary cycle,

  • but it's open little more than a crack,

  • and it's getting smaller and smaller each day.

  • I think there are...

  • and we should talk...

  • what they're keen to stop is no-deal Brexit more

  • than just Brexit itself.

  • I think there are two options available to those people who

  • want to line up against Boris Johnson.

  • The first is a vote of confidence to bring him down.

  • His majority is officially only one.

  • He's got a little bit more to play with, but not much.

  • Bring his government down.

  • Force a general election.

  • The problem with that is it's become clear

  • that because of the nature of the British constitution,

  • he could probably delay that election until after Brexit

  • has happened, unless they can offer up

  • a rival administration.

  • And it looks like they...

  • That's the government of so-called national unity.

  • Yes.

  • And you've had some figures, Caroline Lucas,

  • suggesting that this new government of national unity

  • should be comprised just of women...

  • Yes.

  • ...who've got more sense.

  • I think that was a strangely tokenistic call.

  • She said, let's have an all-women cabinet.

  • But I think what she was attempting

  • to do was cut through the fact that party

  • issues and tribal loyalties are stopping

  • the different parties from being prepared to work together.

  • Liberal Democrats won't serve under Jeremy Corbyn.

  • Rebel Tories wouldn't either.

  • Jeremy Corbyn wouldn't countenance

  • serving under anybody else.

  • So they're possibly pulling together that kind

  • of caretaker government.

  • The Brexiters don't like it being

  • called a government of national unity

  • because they say, well, it's only one side of the argument.

  • But this caretaker government, it looks very, very difficult

  • to assemble.

  • So if you can't do that, then the only other option

  • is to try to legislate to block a no-deal Brexit,

  • as they succeeded in doing under Theresa May.

  • But here, again, there's a problem.

  • Was that the Cooper-Letwin amendment?

  • The so-called Cooper-Letwin amendment.

  • Here, again, there's a problem, because the way

  • the European Union works is a request for an extension

  • to delay the Brexit date has to come from the government.

  • And if the government is refusing to do it,

  • even legislation can make it tricky.

  • So then you find yourself back in,

  • well, we'll have to bring this government down territory,

  • but you've wasted a lot of time.

  • So it's very, very tricky for the Remainers.

  • Is there a deus ex machina - the Queen, perhaps -

  • that could resolve this possible deadlock?

  • Or do you think, actually, it'll be senior civil servants?

  • The Queen will not want to intervene directly in politics,

  • making any choice that isn't apparently

  • obvious to the rest of the country.

  • So if the assembled forces of opponents of Boris Johnson

  • are able to unite behind one figure and say to the Queen,

  • we believe X commands a majority in the House,

  • then she would, under advice, probably call for them.

  • But she's not going to go looking

  • to solve this problem for the politicians.

  • And there is something even deeper here,

  • and you allude to this in your writing

  • Robert, that the Remainers don't have or appear

  • not to have that ideological cohesiveness and conviction

  • and passion that the Leavers have.

  • Yes.

  • I've written in a column today that the believers,

  • particularly under Boris Johnson,

  • his chief of staff Dominic Cummings,

  • a disciple of Bismarck you should know,

  • have essentially adopted the Goldwater maxim,

  • moderation in defence of Brexit is no virtue.

  • Extremism in defence of Brexit is no vice.

  • And...

  • That's Barry Goldwater...

  • Barry Goldwater, the former...

  • ...who completely bombed in the 1964 presidential election

  • against...

  • Yes, there were drawbacks, drawbacks to this approach.

  • Lyndon Johnson.

  • But they believe they're going to,

  • they are going all out with an absolute single-mindedness,

  • and it's making a government with a wafer-thin majority very

  • hard to resist at the moment.

  • And the Remainers are not getting their act together

  • in fighting them.

  • Extraordinary, really, given that, as you say,

  • Boris Johnson has a nominal majority...

  • Yeah.

  • ...of one.

  • Conviction brings you a lot these days.

  • It does.

  • Thank you, Robert Shrimsley.

We've heard a lot about the Leavers,

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