Guernsey Press

How do Britain’s papers view the latest battles over Brexit?

Key votes will take place in the Commons on Tuesday.

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Brexit is the talk of Tuesday’s papers ahead of key votes on amendments to the Withdrawal Agreement in the Commons.

Among the amendments which could be selected is one by 1922 Committee chairman Sir Graham Brady, which states that Parliament would be willing to support the Withdrawal Agreement reached with the EU if “alternative arrangements” were found to avoid a hard border with Ireland.

Mrs May has backed the proposal which, if selected and passed, could see her return to Brussels for more negotiations.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, William Hague said European leaders needed to “think carefully” before sending Mrs May without a concession.

He said: “If you leave Theresa May to swing, she will probably fall.

“A new British prime minister is either going to be a more hardline Conservative or Jeremy Corbyn, and how are you going to like that?

“With the former you are going to lose the deal anyway, and with the latter the whole Western alliance will be in trouble.”

He added that further inflexibility in the bloc would provide weight to the arguments that Britain should leave were a second vote to take place.

The Sun calls on MPs to vote down an amendment tabled by Labour’s Yvette Cooper, calling her proposal “sabotage”.

The paper’s leader added: “If MPs do defeat Cooper, Tory Brexiters will need to wake up. They are still fighting among themselves about the changes they want on the backstop.

“But they must give Mrs May ammunition to take into a new battle with Brussels.

“And if they are still thinking No Deal is the alternative, they are making a high-risk gamble. Even if Remainers fail today they are likely in the end to scupper No Deal, and probably Brexit, by collapsing the Government.”

The Daily Mail takes aim at what it calls “Brexit ultras” in its leader column.

It writes: “Presented with what could be their last chance to save Brexit, they appear to have spurned it.

“To any rational Brexiteer, Graham Brady’s amendment backing the EU withdrawal agreement as long as the Irish backstop is replaced by ‘alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border’, should have been viewed as eminently sensible.”

It said the “reckless zealots” of the European Research Group of Eurosceptic MPs dismissed the plans as being too vague.

The paper said: “Really? Sort out the backstop and the deal goes through. Fail to sort it out and the deal fails. What could be clearer than that?”

Meanwhile, the Daily Mirror focuses on the warnings of food shortages in the case of a no-deal Brexit.

“No deal, no meal”, the headline reads with the paper’s leader saying the message needed to be heard.

The column said: “Simply shouting ‘Project Fear’ is the ostrich approach: sticking your head in the sand and hoping problems go away.

“British banks came close to running out of money and shutting cash machines in the 2008 financial collapse until they were bailed out.

“So when major High Street players issue a Brexit SOS, anybody pretending there’s nothing to worry about is a fool.”

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