The UKhasa Government clinging to power without a majority that has ripped up most of its manifesto and is left with Brexit bills and little else. Even the ceremonial itself was pared down as the PM begins to face up to her much diminished stature and power. Too weak to carry out the reshuffle we all know she was planning, shorn of her closest advisers, isolated and depending on a deal with the DUP which is not yet done and which if it is done may put at risk the stability of the Good Friday Agreement, it is not at all clear that the Tory Minority Government under Theresa May can survive. The first test will be in votes on the Queens Speech next Wednesday and Thursday.

My Labour colleagues and Iwill be doing all we can to defeat them. The Government’s legislative programme is a stunted and unambitious thing. The only significant Bills are designed to remove us from the EU.

As you will all know, my view is that to spend most of our Parliamentary time preparing for exiting the EU in order to become a poorer, smaller economy and a much less influential nation is an absolute tragedy and our most disastrous foreign policy decision since Suez. The fact that the PM is still pursuing the most extreme, ideological Brexit possible, simply to ensure her own survival will damage the UK more even than pursuing a more sensible strategywould. The Parliamentary arithmetic in the Commons & the Lords gives much more leverage for us to try and mitigate the worst effects.

The PM’s loss of her Commons majority and the ripping up of most of her manifesto in the Queen’s Speech means that the Salisbury convention which prevents the Lords amending measures in the Govt manifesto doesn’t apply & she will now find it very hard to get damaging measures through either House.

It is quite possible that she or her Government could fall in the next few months if we keep up the pressure.