Prime Minister Theresa May. Photo / Getty Images
Britain is at a dead end, and its Prime Minister Theresa May is now being urged to consider a previously unthinkable option.
Britain is at a dead end.
Parliament has rejected Prime Minister Theresa May's proposed Brexit deal. Twice.
Last night it voted against crashing out of the European Union without a deal.
There is not enough support for a second Brexit referendum.
And May has repeatedly, unambiguously ruled out calling an election.
The country's politicians are against everything and in favour of nothing. Which is a problem, given Britain is supposed to leave the EU in a fortnight.
May is now telling MPs the only alternative to supporting her deal is to seek a long extension to the article 50 process, which would push the March 29 deadline back by months or even years.
She says parliament "needs to face up to the consequences of the decisions it has taken".
Labour says there is another option. May could drop her opposition to an election.
"The Prime Minister has run down the clock, and the clock has been run out on her," Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn said.
"It's time that we have a general election and the people can choose who the government should be."
Former Brexit minister David Davis, who resigned from May's cabinet last year over her handling of the negotiations, declared an election was "a lot more likely" when May's deal was rejected again this week.
"I don't say it's going to happen, but clearly if a government can't get through on the one issue which we were really elected to deal with at the last election, it puts us all in a very difficult situation," Mr Davis said.
But perhaps Corbyn should be careful what he wishes for.
You would expect Labour to win an election easily. May's conservative government has been a shambles for two years now, and when a government is in disarray, the opposition wins. Right?
It is nowhere near that simple.
Recent polling actually puts the Tories well ahead of Labour, and the gap is widening. In the last three major polls, the government has been ahead by an average of 10 per cent.
If that kind of result were replicated at an election, Theresa May would actually gain seats.
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