Drawback of EU vote
On 31 October the Government was defeated in Parliament on an amendment from a right-wing Tory MP calling for the EU budget to be cut. The Government’s line is that the budget should be frozen, and the odds are that it will do a deal with Germany to keep the increase small. The parliamentary vote does not bind the Government, but has embarrassed it and further inflamed differences between the Tories and the Lib-Dems. Labour MPs, including left-wing ones, voted solidly for the amendment. If the vote had brought the Government down, then those tactics would make sense. But it was nowhere near...