Brexit?: UK MPs' maths means election, not no-deal Brexit - by Tobias Gras

Having lost the by-election in the previously-safe Conservative Welsh seat of Brecon and Radnorshire, the Remain coalition of Liberal Democrats, Greens and the Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru has demonstrated that Conservative seats – even in Leave-leaning constituencies – can be won, as the 'Boris bounce' fails to annihilate the Brexit Party, and the weakness of the Labour party fuels a Liberal surge.

With a majority of just one in the House of Commons, it takes only two Tory defectors to carry a motion of no confidence in Boris Johnson.

This will happen, and the prime minister knows it.

So when actively preparing for a hard Brexit on October 31st, Johnson is right to say it is less likely to happen.

Not – as he claims – since the EU will budge, but because two or more heroes or traitors, depending on one's point of view, will defect and bring down his government to prevent no-deal Brexit from happening.

The interesting question is what happens next?

In any case, a hard Halloween Brexit on October 31st seems increasingly unlikely. 

Read more at: UK MPs' maths means election, not no-deal Brexit

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Austria: May humiliated by Salzburg ambush as she fights to save Chequers Brexit Plan in Austria: by Dan Sabbagh, Daniel Boffey and Pippa Crerar

Theresa May was left fighting to save her Chequers Brexit plan and with it her authority as prime minister after she was ambushed at the end of the Salzburg summit when EU leaders unexpectedly declared that her proposals would not work.

The prime minister was thrown on to the defensive – just over a week before the Conservative party conference – when EU leaders led by Donald Tusk and Emmanuel Macron rejected her Chequers plan as it stood, prompting hard Brexit Conservatives to demand it be abandoned.

May was also set an October deadline for a solution on the Irish border issue just hours after informing Leo Varadkar, the Irish taoiseach, in a private breakfast meeting that she felt it would be impossible to come to a compromise within such a timescale.

A clearly nervous and angry May told reporters that EU leaders were engaged in “negotiating tactics” designed to throw her off course. “I have always said these negotiations were going to be tough,” she said. “And at various stages of these negotiations, tactics would be used as part of those negotiations”.

The assault on May’s plan came shortly after a lunchtime meeting of EU leaders in the Austrian city, where they discussed the Brexit talks in May’s absence. EU council president Tusk declared that Chequers “would not work” while French president Macron said it was “not acceptable”.

A combative Macron accused British Brexiters of lying about how easy it would be to negotiate an exit from the EU on terms favourable to the UK.

“Those who explain that we can easily live without Europe, that everything is going to be alright, and that it’s going to bring a lot of money home are liars,” said Macron. “It’s even more true since they left the day after so as not to have to deal with it.”

Read more: May humiliated by Salzburg ambush as she fights to save Chequers plan | Politics | The Guardian