And apart from a brief flurry of perfunctory contacts with senior Labour MPs and trade union leaders, May’s focus is firmly on winning blue and orange votes, not red ones. According to those on yesterday’s Cabinet conference call, the target is winning round those 118 Tories and 10 DUP MPs who rejected her plan last week. “It’ll be more about the process than any new plan,” one Cabinet minster tells me. The DUP, having been burned by the backstop idea in December 2017, are in a very strong position. Yesterday on Marr he said a ‘backstop’ was now unavoidable, and also suggested any deal would no longer have.

Source: Huffington Post January 21, 2019 09:29 UTC