BBC’s scrolling update perfectly timed to reveal the truth about May’s backstop claim
The BBC has a deserved reputation for routinely acting as a stenographer or amplifier of the Tory government’s claims and narratives – but today, by chance or design, it exposed Theresa May’s exaggerations in the middle of her speech to MPs during the Commons debate about her ‘new’ Brexit deal.
May had just claimed that Attorney General Geoffrey Cox had “changed his legal analysis” and concluded that the deal was “a materially new legal commitment” when the BBC News channel’s scrolling updates revealed that Cox had delivered a very different verdict:
In fact, Cox had said – and had refused to change his legal opinion in spite of pressure from the government – that the legal risk of the UK being ‘trapped indefinitely in the [Northern Irish] backstop’ “remains unchanged”.
May’s deal is expected to be heavily defeated again this evening after both the DUP and the ERG (‘European Research Group’ of Tory MPs) said they will join Labour in voting against it, although May’s time-wasting is thought to have pressured twenty or so Tory MPs to switch to backing her dismal ‘deal’.
SKWAWKBOX comment:
May has form for such duplicity.
If she is defeated again, how can she claim to have the confidence of the House, let alone of the nation? Potential defeats in votes on Philip Hammond’s ‘spring statement’ quasi-budget might not be the only confidence issue May faces this week, although the shameless ERG is likely to again side with her on a confidence vote even though she is clearly the lamest of lame-duck PMs.
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