Overall, Majority

At various times, Jeremy Corbyn has defeated four people for the Leadership of the Labour Party. Under any of those people, there would have been no victory over the Government last night.

A Labour three-line whip would have attached to an amendment calling for a referendum between the deal and Remain. Many Conservatives would have voted for that. But enough Labour MPs, including Corbyn, would have voted against it.

Following the loss of that amendment, then the Labour whip on the main motion would have been to abstain. A few Labour MPs would still have voted for it. Rather more, again including Corbyn but still not awfully many, would have voted against it. And the Government would have won.

"The Tories are a firm, but Labour is a family." That was one of the first things that I was ever told in active politics, and it has turned out to have been true over and over again. The unions continued to fund the Labour Party even after the Callaghan Government had sent in the troops against them.

But the people who fund the Conservative Party, and who are implacably opposed to a No Deal Brexit, would have no hesitation in simply turning off the cash tap. That point is rapidly approaching, possibly along with a General Election.

People who talk about overall majorities are living in the past. Regardless of who led either party, that is simply no longer this country. The Conservatives barely scraped an overall majority in 2015, and even that was by means of cheating that they do not even deny, but which the dear old Crown Prosecution Service could find "no public interest" in prosecuting. They would not get away with it a second time.

For an overall majority to happen these days, then the first three of a dozen or more things that would have to happen would be Scottish independence, the removal of Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom, and the transformation of either the Conservative Party or the Labour Party into the Liberal Democrats, initially on the basis of Remain If Possible But Rejoin If Necessary, and then on every political and cultural indicator.

None of those things is going to happen. Therefore, another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. It has become a local commonplace that I am on 30-30-30 with Labour and the Conservatives here at North West Durham, so that any one of us could be the First Past the Post. I will stand for this seat, if I can raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.