The Labour Party is expected to table a motion of no confidence in the Government – to push for a new election. May would have to come up with a new plan. MPs will push alternatives, such as a second referendum. The PM might have to open formal talks with Labour.
Long before now, there should have been formal cross-party, leadership-level talks. A unity summit, even the creation of a crisis cabinet, would have helped.
Britain's traditional tribal politics and first-past-the-post system have served the country badly over Brexit.
After elections, there is no regular expectation of coalition talks and multi-party formal agreements on the scale we in New Zealand are used to under MMP. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition of 2010 to 2015 was the closest to it. Since 2017, May's minority government has been propped up by usual Tory allies the Northern Irish DUP.
The main parties are controlled by two partisan leaders in May and Jeremy Corbyn. It's hard not to think that a strong, pragmatic leader in the style of Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon would never have allowed Brexit political chaos to snowball the way it has. ITV political editor Robert Peston commented yesterday: "What is extraordinary about the Brexit talks is that 27 EU countries, and a Parliament and a bureaucracy have negotiated with a single voice ... and the UK has negotiated as if it was the equivalent of 27 or perhaps 600 dissonant voices".
Surely the best approach after the Brexit referendum in 2016 would have been to set up regular multi-party consultation and combined input on planning. Then — as reporting emerged about the leave campaign's funding, the promises that didn't fit with reality, and the scope of the challenge — adjustments could have been made and an inquiry launched.
With both Brexit and the US government shutdown, billions are being wasted in preference to seeking deals.
The British Government is throwing money away at no-deal preparation when it could request an extension of the deadline or cancel Brexit.
The US shutdown is leaking billions even though Congress could pass a bill opening the government up, with the Senate overriding President Donald Trump's veto.
Time has also been wasted in both cases.
The Republican Party controlled the US government for two years – plenty of time to put through money for the wall.
In Britain, MPs are now left scurrying for a solution at the 11th hour.
