Sitting on a Saturday...

Today, the media have decided, is ‘Super Saturday', the first occasion in forty years that parliament has been required to convene at the weekend. We’re also told that the issues will look clearer by the time parliament votes for - or against - Boris Johnson’s deal this evening. That seems optimistic. I couldn’t list these issues on a sheet of A4 paper, and I imagine that most people would baulk at the task.

The question we were asked in 2016 - leave or remain - now looks absurdly simplistic. The genie is out of the bottle, and there’s no way to get him back in. The MPs who will vote today cannot be categorised as ‘leave’ or ‘remain’ either; they all have their own agendas, which include giving a ‘bloody nose’ to their unloved and unrespected party leaders. There are MPs interested in just a single issue. There are MPs who, because they won’t be standing at the next election, will feel able to listen to their conscience rather than express any loyalty to their party. No-one seems to know which way the vote will go… only that it will be close.

It’s pointless trying to shoe-horn complex issues into a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote. It didn’t work in 2016, and it won’t work now. I’ll be relieved if we can get through this convoluted Brexit saga with our democratic traditions intact.

There's World Cup rugby today too, but I find rugby as baffling - and boring - as Brexit.

Licensed yesterday: a terrace of houses in Midhurst, West Sussex...