The Right To Remain

Labour in the House of Lords voted against an amendment to keep Britain in the Single Market.

Be in no doubt that any deal brought back by Theresa May will do precisely that. But in the meantime, certain pretences have to be kept up.

Labour in the House of Lords will vote in favour of an amendment guaranteeing the right to remain of those EU citizens who were already living here.

That amendment that is very likely to pass. Having been passed, then it would be practically certain to be accepted by the Government.

There is no contradiction in any of this.

The mixing up of the debate on the EU with that on immigration was always, well, rather baffling to those of us who were, frankly, better educated and better informed.

But it will be interesting to see whether anyone in the Commons would seek from the backbenches to delete the amendment guaranteeing the right to remain.

Only the tiniest handful of MPs would vote in favour of anything so anti-family and anti-business, but it would be worth knowing quite who they were.

They would not, of course, include Douglas Carswell, who has never made any bones about believing that goods, services, capital and people ought all to flow around the world without any hindrance whatever.

In other words, no immigration controls. At all.

As Nigel Farage knew to be his position when he agreed to let Carswell into UKIP.