Settled Status

Here we are, then. We are to become a colony of the EU, obeying laws that we are to have no say in making, and a satrapy of the EU, paying tribute to its imperium.

During this period, there is going to be a second referendum between two options: staying in the EU after all (but on its terms, of course, since we have well and truly messed it about), and the only thing worse than that, staying in the Single Market and the Customs Union, so that we can pay but have no say.

We know that there is going to be that second referendum, because without that absolute commitment from the Prime Minister, then one or other House of Parliament would certainly have brought down both her and her EU Withdrawal Bill last night. That she and it are still in place proves conclusively that that absolute commitment was given.

Leave won in the wrong places for it to have been about immigration, at least as the decisive issue. And today, Sajid Javid has duly confirmed that no one from the EU is being sent back or what have you. Nor, let's face it, will they be prevented from continuing to come and go as they please.

Those who support the party of the Unionism, Imperialism, and "the Common Market" are the last  people with any right to complain about a British population with roots across Ireland, the Empire, and the EU.

Last night's four Labour rebels, and at least four of the six Labour abstainers, were all from the old anti-Market minority within the Labour Right, with Tony Benn's heirs voting for the parliamentary control that was so much a part of his life's work.

But that tradition is an honourable one, and it is often correct. If the decision as to a "meaningful vote" is to be made by the Speaker of the House of Commons, then that Speaker needs to be Frank Field. Indeed, for all sorts of reasons, the Speaker needs to be Frank Field.