With friends like these. . . ?

Last  Tuesday, 20th August the Guardian (one of only two of our national newspapers opposed to  Brexit -the other, I hope, being the Daily Mirror) headlined Polly Toynbee's article on the front page of its Journal (ie opinion) section "Remainers  must do 'whatever it takes'  to prevent no deal."  In the same section the first leader was headlined "The cost of no deal is brutal.  MPs must work together to stop it."

An inside article by a Poppy Trowidge, formerly a special advisor to Philip Hammond, mentions "no deal" ten times and "leaving without a deal " twice, but nowhere does she mention the option of revoking Article 50 and remaining in the EU.

M/s Trowbridge's article acknowledges that the  "[Johnson] administration has done a brilliant job of branding and broadcasting its approach" - that is of framing the debate as between leaving with or without a deal rather than the better  choice of leaving or remaining (as spelled out in previous posts.)

Sadly the Guardian has not seen fit to print the letter I sent on this topic, the essence of which is that they have:

 "fall[en] into the trap, possibly as a result of the dark arts of Dominic Cummings, of allowing the ardent Brexiteers to define the question before us as between “Deal and No-deal” thus enabling them to declare any deal as a triumph of Mr Johnson’s dogged British determination.   Yet we still leave the EU.

What needs to be spelt out in any article on this topic in the next two months

 is that  leaving the EU with any deal - and the most we can expect is a 

cosmetic re-tweaking of that already agreed with Mrs May - will damage 

our political stature, our economy, our comforts, our culture, the 

opportunities available to  our young people,  and  our capacity  to avert the

 climate catastrophe. 

The real question before us now is not ‘Deal or No deal' but still ‘Remain or  Leave.’  MPs are now  in a position to compare the promises made in 2016 with the facts as they  have now emerged and answer this question by voting to revoke Article 50. If they haven’t the guts to use their judgement and do their duty, they can pass the buck by insisting on a People’s Vote. These are the true options before us."

If our major serious supporter in the media allows itself to seduced by Johnson's fairly obvious ploy, what hope is there for a rational discussion about the realities of our situation?