Welcome to the Guardian’s weekly Brexit briefing, trying to make sense of the nonsensical since June 2016. If you would like to receive this as a weekly email, please sign up here. And you can catch our monthly Brexit Means podcast here.
Top stories
It’s still all about the Conservative leadership contest and voting starts this week. Ten candidates qualified and the big names have mostly launched their campaigns (or dropped out). As far as Brexit goes, it’s mainly about who is most in denial.
The frontrunner, Boris Johnson, who reckons the party faces extinction if it does not deliver Brexit, has vowed to scrap the Irish backstop, step up no-deal preparations and withhold Britain’s £39bn “divorce” payment unless the EU agrees to better terms.
Jeremy Hunt, vying with Michael Gove to make it to the ballot of members alongside Johnson, says Angela Merkel told him she was willing to renegotiate the EU27’s Brexit deal, and he believes – according to one of his backers, Amber Rudd – he can solve the Irish border issue by “going to Ireland and talking to them”.
Andrea Leadsom’s “managed exit” involves holding a Belfast summit to resolve the Irish question, then cherry-picking the acceptable bits of the withdrawal agreement, while Dominic Raab thinks suspending parliament to force Brexit through should not be ruled out, because doing so would “weaken the UK’s negotiating position”.
With most candidates saying they would try to reopen talks with Brussels on May’s deal, the chancellor, Philip Hammond, said the EU27 were so determined not to do so that they had already disbanded their negotiating team.
In other news, Labour saw off the Brexit party to narrowly win the Peterborough byelection, prompting Jeremy Corbyn to say he was now in no hurry to bow to party pressure to move immediately towards demanding a second EU referendum.
What next
Let’s wait until the Tories have a new leader, shall we? Right now all we can safely say is that it looks very much like most of the candidates are determined to rush headlong into the same Brexit impasse as May. But who knows.
The EU27 will not reopen the withdrawal agreement. The baseline scenario remains: new PM goes to Brussels, Brussels refuses to renegotiate, new PM ask parliament to approve no deal, parliament refuses. Then what?
We have a guide to the candidates’ Brexit stances here, and odds on the runners and riders here.
Best of the rest
UK and South Korea agree to sign post-Brexit trade deal.
Emily Thornberry may face move in reshuffle after Labour split over new EU vote.
Ed Davey rules out a remain alliance if he becomes Lib Dem leader.
Dominic Grieve asked by local Tory party to apply for readoption.
Next Tory PM will not be able to suspend parliament, says Bercow.
Boris Johnson wins court challenge over £350m Brexit claims.
Stop talking up no deal, Tory leadership candidates told.
Boris Johnson got £700,000 for speeches and columns, MPs’ register shows.
Ford to close Bridgend factory by September 2020.
UK economy is stalling despite service sector growth.
Change UK loses six of its 11 MPs after dire EU elections result.
Top comment
In the Guardian, Matthew d’Ancona says the Tories need to wean themselves off the drug of hard Brexit:
All the candidates in this race – with the honourable exception of Rory Stewart – argue (explicitly or otherwise) that Theresa May was the problem in the talks with Brussels, and that they would be able to deliver a new and better deal through sheer brilliance, brio and force of character. May was indeed a poor negotiator, lacking the agility, cunning and poker-playing skills to outfox the other side. I can believe, for instance, that Jeremy Hunt would have done a better job. But what stretches credulity is that there is, and has always been, a low-hanging fruit of a deal just waiting to be plucked by a new leader. Bear in mind, too, that if the polls of Tory members are accurate, the party is likely to choose one of those hard Brexiteers for whom Donald Tusk, as European Council president, reserved a “special place in hell”. The notion that the EU27 will suddenly embrace and yield to a tough pro-Brexit prime minister – Dieu merci! Gott sei Dank! Grazie Dio! – seems to me a really special example of magical thinking.
Top tweet
Faisal Islam, doubtless expressing the thoughts of many:
V odd this “race to be PM” from afar - tax plans that won’t pass this Parliament, Brexit “plans” that won’t pass Parliament, promise not to have GE - promises being made to tiny selectorate that aren’t in hands of winner to deliver...
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) June 10, 2019
It’s like a unicorn Grand National.
