(05-04-2019 10:56 )Scots Napoleon Wrote:  That would depend on what the terms of a soft brexit were exactly.

If we went into a customs union and made a binding commitment to it, for example, then Boris or anyone else would not be able to ditch that arrangement in favour of a hard brexit without having the EU's agreement.

(05-04-2019 18:07 )4waydiablo Wrote:  Among the various news items on Brexit today I noticed a spokesman at No.10 being quoted as saying that in the event of the government agreeing to a customs union with the EU they would seek to have a clause in the agreement giving the UK the right to exit the arrangement unilaterally.

(05-04-2019 20:41 )southsidestu Wrote:  Interesting results in the Newport West by election. Pro remain Labour candidate Ruth Jones produced a Labour hold for the seat that voted 56% Leave in the referendum. Turn out was only 37.1% compared to 67.5% in the 2017 general election with parties blaming poor weather which featured heavy rain and hail. As you can see despite Labour's retention it did lose a significant amount of it's overall share and majority.

UKIP came in third and received the largest gains however their overall vote share was less than that of the staunchly pro Brexit parties (PC, LD & GRN)

Obviously this is a by-election with an unusually low turnout so it may be somewhat premature to go drawing conclusions on a national scale, however it certainly seems that the duopoly enjoyed by The Tories and Labour in the 2017 GE is going into reverse as both are losing votes to the staunchly leave and remain parties respectively.

What does this mean as far as the predicted Brexodus of remain MPs in leave seats? Well as you can see UKIP were never in with a shout, there will be other seats where they will be better placed to cause an upset but The Tories did field a candidate who voted leave in the referendum and still finished some way behind the Labour candidate. If this is the beginning of a revolution it's a stop start.