Brexit: 'Mission unaccomplished' By BBC News

Staff Published duration 30 March 2019 Related Topics Brexit

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Saturday's front pages are dominated by what the Daily Mail describes as the previous day's "Brexit betrayal".

The latest rejection of Theresa May's deal has left the country in "political paralysis", it says.

"Brexit: mission unaccomplished," is the headline in the i, while the Guardian describes the sense of "stunned disbelief" in Parliament in the aftermath of the vote.

The Sun meanwhile focuses on the MPs who cast their ballots against the deal, telling them it's "Brexsick of the lot of you".

The Daily Express devotes its front page to a picture of protestors in Parliament Square who, it says, were expressing a "dignified fury".

What should have been a celebration of leaving the EU had turned into anger at the political class for failing to enact their wishes, the paper says.

The Financial Times agrees the country is facing "political chaos, crisis and humiliation". But it says some of the blame has to be shared by the "false prospectus" peddled by the Leave campaign.

"Exiting the EU was never going to be quick and easy," it says.

There's plenty of analysis of what might happen next, and the Guardian's Jonathan Freedland is brutal in his assessment.

"There is no deader horse in the kingdom than the Brexit deal brokered by Theresa May," it says. "Flogged and flogged again, it expired for a third time on the floor of the House of Commons."

The Times isn't so sure . It reports that Downing Street is drawing up plans for "one final attempt" to get Mrs May's deal through parliament, in a run-off against whatever option might emerge from further indicative votes.

Online, the HuffPost UK agrees that Mrs May still has some road left. "Her whole strategy has been based on an assumption that MPs will only jam on the brakes once the car gets right up to the cliff-edge."

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The Daily Telegraph, meanwhile, reports that cabinet ministers will attempt to take control of the process - and will next week tell the PM it is time to "embrace no deal".

The Spectator suggests that the chances of a lengthy delay to Brexit have "increased substantially", while the Sun says a general election is now more likely.

It would be an opportunity to "chuck out" the "cynical, dishonest, game-playing charlatans" who are blocking Brexit, the paper says.

However, the Mail sounds a note of caution by pointing out though that elections analyst Sir John Curtice says polls currently suggest there would be a hung parliament - and no end to the deadlock.

'War on knife thugs'

Sajid Javid will "declare war on knife thugs" on Monday by launching a "Stop and Search blitz" to end the bloodshed on British streets, the Sun reports

It says the home secretary will rip up restrictions on the controversial policing technique introduced five years ago by Theresa May - but will bill it as a pilot scheme to "spare the prime minister's blushes".

Under the changes, police officers in seven regions will no longer have to prove "reasonable grounds" before stopping a suspect, the paper says.

The pervasiveness of the problem of knife crime is set out in the Daily Mirror , which has evidence that prisoners have easy access to a "deadly arsenal" of weapons, and can have other inmates stabbed for just £50.

If someone causes you problems, "you stab them", a prisoner in HMP Humber tells the paper: "That's what happens in here. The problems with knives on the streets is starting inside prisons," he says.

What happens in Vegas...

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Finally, while the UK's attempts to split from the EU are dragging on, several newspapers highlight that Hollywood actor Nicholas Cage is having no such difficulties.

The Guardian says Cage and his fourth wife applied for their wedding licence in Las Vegas last Saturday... and by this Wednesday they were seeking an annulment.

Leaving Las Vegas was Cage's most celebrated film, the Mail notes , and just like his character in it, his latest marriage has "come to rather a sorry end".