h “a fi it‘a'fi fi it‘uié: losing brexit at all. i think the problem is it's possible they don't really care. we are in a sort of strange error of politics whereby intellectual purity, we see this in the left and right, is valued higher than achieving your goals. certainly true of somebody like nigel farage who is not sitting up parliament you have eight cottage industry of nigel farage inc. which means campaigning for brexit. so for him there's that sense of he would much ratherjust be able to feel aggrieved and angry the rest of time that was not delivered properly. he said tonight that he is caring for a european election campaign because he thinks he will be, that they will have to ta ke he will be, that they will have to take part in. we have not left and it will be on the basis of them stealing brexit. the problem is it assumes rational actors in this and

the last six months if not three years have taught us as it has taught us there's not enough rational actors in our political system. basically the uk, it's such a mess, so system. basically the uk, it's such a mess, so depressing, the uk legally required still despite this vote to leave in march 29. it's still the law that we leave their but it's now almost certain that we won't do that so in order to do that we have to extend and the choices are looking like a quick extension if we have backed the meaningful vote that goes through will have a quick extension and technical extension she called it. or we will have a long extension where frankly all bets are off. i think it's a different kind of gamble that she is taking. i think it's a gamble based on fatigue. if anyone understands fatigue it is theresa may. especially when it comes to this. i

would stay up all night for tariffs. i love a tariff. i think that this is the point where not necessarily the narrative polarisation. ukip has moved further to the right and not the party it once was. they don't have that threats of this for the conservative party where even a few short weeks ago the argument of lots of peoplejoining this independent group was that's the way the tory party is going. more and more we are seeing more for convergence around the public losing their patience with this. that's becoming a big pa rt with this. that's becoming a big part of the political narrative. it's talked a bit about the course of the stories in the papers tonight oi’ of the stories in the papers tonight or where this suggestion in order to ensure there's no hard border goods can effectively move from the european union out of the european union into the uk via northern ireland and they would not get any

ta riffs ireland and they would not get any tariffs imposed and it would not work the other way around. initially businesses would lose out badly.“ this idea and it's a little bit more narrow than that in theory where if you want to send something from belfast to dublin you're going to be hit by an import tariff. in the eu has said they will charge those tariffs. he goes the other way from dublin to belfast that will not have to pay an import tariff based on these schedules put forward. that puts northern ireland businesses that have asked us an advantage they say that they have been thrown under the bus and abandoned what they had been hung out to dry. the timing of this is crucial. they don't get journalist out of bed that early in the morning unless there is a political incentive. there we were in westminster being told this set six a:m.. they had an emergency cabinet meeting and all of this was

coincided to come before this crucial vote today and they were saying was if you really want to push no deal look at our contingency plan. it will be absolutely crucifying for you. that's a very strong message to try and sandy but it's a huge gamble to effectively create a no deal backstop of the uk prospect on creation where they are treated different from the rest of the uk that being the entire premise on which we cannot allow the withdrawal agreement to pass anyway. if you look at the metro it's a total no—no, and they say they lose the bargaining chip but by what she's saying is they may have acquired a bargaining chip not with the eu but with the euro sceptic backbenchers. she may have done and she is of course making progress. how many votes they have to get on the current numbers droppable who she goes to zero? the first one she

lost by 230 and now under 49, that's progress. a time they get to that it's logarithmic or an exponential progression. who knows, by meaningful vote 37 it's like, yeah. maybe she will win. i think keeping her deal alive despite looking dead is the fact that nobody is actually got a workable alternative. nobody else wants this job. any kind got a workable alternative. nobody else wants thisjob. any kind of brexit is going to disappoint some people. it's from a small group to an enormous group nobody wants to be an enormous group nobody wants to be a prime minister that did that. they don't want to economic chaos of no deal on there. they don't equally wa nt deal on there. they don't equally want to compromises involved in her deal which is perfectly fine. nothing really wrong with it but nobody wants to be blamed because they want brexit to go ahead and then of course interesting to see if

you look at the details of which cabinet ministers backed the compromise which was also copperheads of cabinet ministers like hunt for jeremy copperheads of cabinet ministers like hunt forjeremy hunt, backing that because they have got their eye on the leadership election. what they want is for brexit to happen, compromised brexit to happen. they saidi compromised brexit to happen. they said i tried something much more tough than this so that they can ta ke tough than this so that they can take that vote. shouldn't they be acting in the national interest? we have a fundamental fudge here. it's very revealing come of this reason they both overlap on northern ireland. there's a reason they both overla p ireland. there's a reason they both overlap on northern ireland. the snow situation that deals with real politics that does not have northern ireland treated differently. that's the issue. you have a choice of which first. that's a thing about

the agreement being yet another unicorn is that it does not fully acknowledge the northern irish issue and until you do that you can have no deal and you do have either no deal that will pass and so you are the default outwards to no deal or you have the status quo. you cannot have anything in between and that's what keeps crashing out of the eu very much still on the table. we we re very much still on the table. we were reminding me of a comedy from a few years ago. it's a good night time drink like ovaltine or something. very nourishing. let's move on. the net of drama seems for a ministers breakthrough and even more bizarrely one of the whips effectively saying it was a state not as ideal was ordering people to go and vote the government tonight but then himself abstained. but then the situation that they had already

whipped against this said they had proposed. it's where the farce become so proposed. it's where the farce become so extreme proposed. it's where the farce become so extreme it's hard to believe. we also had that with the spring statement which is one of the few papers to happen. one of the big five important events in parliament. the whole spring forecasts are entirely based upon is having a transition period. just to stick with this but the cabinets have done people don't register the significance of this. you have served in government. coalition government. what do you draw from this tonight? i think it's remarkable and does undermine

theresa may's ability to govern because i worked for the coalition we re two because i worked for the coalition were two parties agreed to programme and vote together. how to compromise on both sides but doing it to provide strong and stable government. in the end you have to suck it up. tonight click your responsibility has once again been thrown. we see with borisjohnson when he was a serving being able to write columns in the telegraph but this is way beyond that. normally that requires you to resign. even as an abstention to underline this further you are reducing... parliament requires there to be some sort of party system and whipping syste m sort of party system and whipping system committees of the conventions of which are politics are built. if

you cannot whip because you cannot persuade people to vote the way you wa nt persuade people to vote the way you want when it would rather not because you are not going to force her cabinet ministers were getting paid twice as much as the backbenchers having the opportunity to run departments they are not required to vote with the government, you cannot hold the party together. how do you feel that they are going to feel about the parties and that they were able to stick theirfinger up parties and that they were able to stick their finger up at the prime minister in all theirjobs? are the open cabinet split over these tariff schedules. with the believe there would be good for getting the meaningful vote through and the other thought there would be catastrophic. they had been saying different things in the same day and disagreeing about what cabinet had discussed which normally you would not even have. but here you have

functioning collective cabinet responsibility. that escrow extraordinary and it was meant to be a big moment and you had this re—imposing of collective cabinet responsibility to come either in the national interest and stop greasing against each other in the press having had open season on brexit issues and that's just not returned and that shocked a lot of people internationally because this was quite an effective model of government before he entered into this. if you look through the spring statement there's good policies here but it's one of the few ministers trying to occasionally improve the way the country is governed. stuff on home building and energy efficiency. need a functioning government to do that and i think it's incredibly depressing for the civil servants and more junior ministers just civil servants and more junior ministersjust try to civil servants and more junior ministers just try to get soon done and there's no balance. we will talk more in our next paper review. don't forget you can see the front

pages of the papers online on the bbc news website. it's all there for you — seven days a week at bbc.co.uk/papers. and if you miss the programme any evening, you can watch it later on bbc iplayer. thank you anna isaac and polly mackenzie — back in half an hour. i will be back at the top of the hour after the weather. good evening. wednesday saw the uk bearing the full brunt of storm gareth with widespread gales and exposure. the swell here now pulling out into the north sea is the heart of low pressure. we have got this great big white ribbon feeding on the way across north america and that's the conveyor belt that's going to keep the stormy weather coming for us in the next few days. strong winds thursday and friday maybe even another name to storm on

saturday. through this evening and overnight most of the rain pushing to the northwest and seeking its way south east but the winds remain strong again and the gust 40, 40 five miles per hour. more persistent rain will head away from southern reaches of the uk quite quickly on thursday. as the weather front sinks to the south with her will still be plenty of showers following on behind during the early part of the day. for most they do morning offering up at least some rain as the day goes on to prospects overall will become a much brighter but the wind will still remain. in some areas will feel quite similar to todayis areas will feel quite similar to today is that for there being more centred in terms of the winds having similar strengths to despite having similar strengths to despite having similar winds. we are talking about gusts in london higher than that of the coast. eight to 13 for the temperatures. friday and remember that ribbon striking out into the

atlantic. another one spitting out on that conveyor belt running to the north of the uk fighting another windy day and a lot of showers getting fed across the you sooner is faring best and that's showing up on the chart. turning colder in the north and then decreased risk of snow. scattered snow showers on friday however we do have another low set to develop looks like it could be even deeper once again. saturday could be her next name storm. if it's big enough will be named hannah. potentially also some disruptive snow across the northern half of the uk. her forecast remains a very mobile as to go through the coming days strong winds with potentially another stormy day to come on saturday.

this is bbc news. i'm shaun ley. tonight at 11:00: no to no deal. mps reject leaving the european union without an agreement. on two occasions, mps rejected a no—deal brexit. those voting included several ministers who defied theresa may's instructions. it's another heavy setback for the prime minister, who warned mps that a delay to brexit is now highly likely — unless they back a deal. foal eagle default in uk and eu law means that the uk were leave the eu without a deal unless... unless something else is agreed does make the legal default. earlier today in his spring statement, the chancellor urged a cross—party compromise on brexit — to lift the "cloud of uncertainty", hanging over the economy.