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The big picture

Before another terrible terrorist atrocity struck on Saturday night – transforming, once again, the tone and key themes of this extraordinary election – it had seemed for a moment last week that we were starting to get a little Brexit clarity.

“Clarity”, on second thoughts, is probably too generous a word, but speeches by Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn did at least throw some light on the major difference between the Labour and Conservative approaches.

Both parties, as my colleague Dan Roberts noted, continue to share a somewhat misplaced optimism that the UK will somehow be able to keep the benefits of the single market without being a member of the EU.



Corbyn, though giving little concrete detail on the concessions he might make to the EU, particularly on the key Labour concept of a more controlled, less exploitative immigration policy, promised a more consensual approach – and no walkout:

Crashing out would the worst possible outcome. There is no such thing as no deal. No deal is in fact a bad deal; it is the worst of all deals.

May, meanwhile, reiterated her insistence that only by genuinely embracing the opportunities of “no deal” could the UK convince Michel Barnier and the EU’s negotiators to make the necessary compromises:

This great national moment needs a great national effort in which we pull together with a unity of purpose. You can only deliver Brexit if you believe in Brexit.

The parties’ respective approaches can perhaps be summarised as Tory stick (described by Corbyn as “posturing and pumped-up animosity”) versus Labour carrot (or “willingness to cave in at any cost”, as May puts it).

The first is aimed at scaring the EU into giving the UK the Brexit the Conservatives want on economic grounds, the second at persuading the bloc that single market access is compatible with “controlled free movement”.

Only one approach will actually be tried, of course. This time next week, we will know which.

The view from Europe

Europe had – as is likely to be the case throughout the upcoming negotiations – bigger fish to fry than Brexit last week, mainly in responding to Donald Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the Paris climate accord.

Perhaps worryingly for the UK, the bloc was united in its rejection of the US president’s offer to renegotiate the agreement as it pledged to bypass Washington and work with US business leaders and state governors.

The European commission proposed a €160bn 2018 EU budget. Commissioner Günther Oettinger said Brexit would “have no direct impact on the 2018 budget, as the UK is expected still be a full member of the EU that year”.

He also said he expected London to approve a mid-term review of the EU’s 2014-2020 budget soon after the 8 June election. The government’s refusal to approve the review, citing pre-vote purdah rules, has infuriated Brussels.

Meanwhile, back in Westminster

As polling day approaches in one of the more wayward and, in one way, alarming election campaigns for decades, there is one thing most people have in common: they’re not about to bet the mortgage on the result.

When the election was called, May’s 20-point lead in the polls over Labour pointed to a crushing victory. But that lead has now more or less halved, and some – admittedly outlying – estimates have indicated the Conservatives could even lose seats.

While that seems, on balance, unlikely, it appears the May brand is tarnished. Her personal approval ratings have tumbled, as Corbyn’s have risen, and the prime minister has been ridiculed as negative and robotic, hoping to strong-and-stable her way to victory.

Will this affect her in subsequent Brexit negotiations if she wins? It’s impossible to tell. But May’s primary argument for calling an election she had promised not to call was strengthening her mandate in going to Brussels. This now looks a less likely prospect.

An example of this is security. Following the Manchester terror attack, the received view was that this was strong electoral ground for a prime minister who had spent six years as home secretary. However, that ended up putting the focus on cuts to police.

Following the second pause in the campaign for a deadly terrorist incident, Saturday’s attack in London Bridge, Labour immediately condemned May for her record, Corbyn even briefly suggesting she should resign (later clarifying the remarks to say the voters should boot her out). The party brought out senior union officials to condemn cuts to emergency services.

Will all this bring a Labour win? The pundits say not. But equally, it wasn’t the campaign trajectory anyone really expected.

You should also know ...

Read these:

In the Guardian, Nesrine Malik says it’s taken a year, but finally the Brexit “scaremongers” are being proved right as Britain’s economy slumps and inflation bites. She says the warnings about the costs of the vote to leave the EU are coming true:

A slowing economic performance is hitting the British people in almost every part of their lives, impacting property values, energy bills, food prices, and the pay packet they take home. Burying heads in the sand and treating any examination of the possibility that a Brexit effect might already be upon us as treason is nothing short of a dereliction of duty. Those who know what damage our EU exit is still likely to cause have to start speaking up.

William Keegan concurs, and reckons the best outcome of the election for anyone who cares about the country’s future would be a hung parliament in which the pro-remain SNP or Liberal Democrats hold the cards:

Brexit is the biggest disaster facing this country since the second world war ... For anyone who cares about prospective damage from Brexit, an ideal result on Thursday would be a hung parliament in which neither main party could form a government without embarking on a coalition with the Lib Dems and SNP – a condition of whose cooperation would be to think again on Brexit.

In the Observer, Will Hutton comes to pretty much the same conclusion, arguing that the UK being led into an epic act of national self-harm over Brexit that threatens to do the country irreparable damage:

Nothing is being done at all. Mrs May and her breezy lead negotiator, David Davis, offer platitudes about Britain embracing the globe and no deal being better than a bad deal, but even the most innocent negotiator in the EU team can see this is vainglorious posturing. As matters stand, the consequence of no deal would be calamitous ... The country, as it makes its decision on who it wants to lead the most important negotiations since the war, deserves to be warned. Instead, silence reigns.

Tweet of the week

Brian Cox, professor of particle physics: