Sputnik: Do you agree with Phillip Hammond's claims that a no deal Brexit would have a higher impact on the economy than Theresa May's Chequers plan and would a Norway style solution be a good idea?
David Lindsay: I regard no-deal Brexit as a more positive outcome than the deal that she's brought back and I don't approve of the Norway option for the same reasons that I don't agree with this particular Chequers proposal. It still leaves us keeping the laws made by the EU and paying in without any say, and that's not acceptable.
Sputnik: How long can Theresa May remain in power?
David Lindsay: Theresa May lost the Conservative Party's overall majority, and most people would be expected to go after that, but she's still there about 18 months later. She can last quite a long time, not because she's particularly any good, but because she just has that quality.
What would happen in this case is; there is majority in the House of Commons for what she's brought back, so it will be defeated because all non-Conservative MPs will vote against it.
I wouldn't be against her seeing this out for quite a long time. Lest we forget; when David Cameron resigned back in 2016, it was considered that the Conservative Party believed that Theresa May was the only person capable of being Prime Minister.
Boris Johnson did not, in fact, contest that leadership election, and as a party, they didn't seem to have anybody.
It is possible; as Jeremy Corbyn has a long history of opposition to the EU and is more Eurosceptic than Theresa May, that he will make the same point that I have been saying, that the deal is a rule taker and not a rule breaker and so forth, and it is an interesting question what deal we might have secured, had he been Prime Minister.
The views expressed in this article are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.
