Guardian:
Tories hit by new defections and slump in opinion polls as party divide widens
Ex-cabinet minister Stephen Dorrell announces switch to Change UK, as Conservatives fall to a five-year polling low
The bitter fallout from Brexit is threatening to break the Tory party apart, as a Europhile former cabinet minister Stephen Dorrell on Sunday announces he is defecting to the independent MPs’ group Change UK, and a new opinion poll shows Conservative support plummeting to a five-year low as anti-EU parties surge.
Writing in Sunday’s Observer, Dorrell, who was health secretary under John Major, says he can no longer continue in a party that “has fallen progressively under the influence of an English nationalist outlook” and turned its back on the traditions of many of its greatest former leaders. …
In a further sign that the Conservatives would face a split if May were replaced as leader by a hardline pro-Brexit leader, the Observer has also obtained a recording of Kenneth Clarke, the former chancellor, telling students at Nottingham University earlier this month that, while he believes that leaving the Tory party now would be an “odd gesture”, he would “probably” switch to Change UK if May’s successor was a hardline Brexiter leader who appointed a cabinet full of anti-EU Tories.
They need to fall apart. But having a hard line Brexiteer replace May is an awful way to have it happen.
The National:
A second Brexit referendum is the best way out of this crisis
All parties to the process have lost control, from the government, which has failed to deliver, to parliament, which couldn't come up with an alternative
European-wide elections are due in late May and June. The results could be so game-changing that Mr Macron’s brutalist mood spreads to the rest of the leadership and Britain is knocked off its perch.
With a Halloween Brexit now looming, headline writers have a ghoulish gift to play with for weeks to come.
WaPo:
Democrats take aim at Miller as questions persist about ‘sanctuary city’ targeting
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) on Sunday cited Miller’s role in developing the targeted-release plan in calling on him to testify. “Steve Miller, who seems to be the boss of everybody on immigration, ought to come before Congress and explain some of these policies,” he said in a CNN interview.
While Cabinet officials routinely testify before Congress on budget and oversight matters, it is unusual for lawmakers to publicly question presidential advisers like Miller — particularly in an adversarial scenario. Presidents of both parties have declined to make their executive aides available to congressional committees, citing the constitutional separation of powers.
Miller, a former congressional aide whose title is senior policy adviser, has played a central role in the Trump administration’s aggressive and controversial immigration policies since its earliest days — helping to orchestrate the January 2017 executive order that barred travelers from seven countries and suspended refugee admissions.
LiveMint:
Another referendum could break the Brexit impasse
How did we get here? In large part, the prime minister has been the architect of her misfortune. Granted that she was dealt a tough hand but she has played it terribly. First, she chose to pander to the right-wing elements of her party. The concerns of remainers were patronisingly brushed off as the latte-sipping metropolitan views of “citizens of nowhere". Rather than building a cross-party coalition on Brexit, she preferred an ultra-narrow sectional lens. She fatuously declared that “no deal is better than a bad one", even though events have charted a different path.
Second, she gambled on a general election in 2017 and ended up losing her majority. The dependency on the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) was thus established. From that moment, the erosion of her authority became irreversible.
And if that’s not crazy enough, now for some domestic doings.
David Leonhardt/NY Times:
Mueller and the Media, Take Two
Let’s try to do better this time.
To review: Mueller has written a report that very few people have seen. Its only official public description has come from William Barr, the attorney general whom President Trump appointed primarily because of Barr’s hostility to the investigation. And the difference between Barr’s letter and Mueller’s report has created widespread confusion.
“The press, to put it mildly, has not handled the confusion well,” Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes write in Lawfare. The media “dramatically overstated what Barr had actually said about the report,” Jurecic and Wittes write, and also incorrectly suggested Trump had been cleared of wrongdoing. The coverage also underplayed Barr’s bias…
Related: James Fallows of The Atlantic says that The Seattle Times did a better job putting the Barr letter in context than much of the national media did.
We noted that at the time. “Barr: No collusion, no exoneration” and points out Barr and not Mueller said it.
Bloomberg via LA Times:
In a rare move, central bankers sound concern over the Fed’s independence
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi took the rare step of weighing in on the hot debate over whether President Trump is undermining the independence of the Federal Reserve.
Speaking to reporters at the International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington, Draghi said on Saturday he was “certainly worried about central bank independence” and especially “in the most important jurisdiction in the world.”
Jennifer Rubin/WaPo:
The mob-boss presidency
What?!? That’s the only sensible reaction for someone minimally conversant in the Constitution and the rule of law. This is the conduct of a movie mob boss, not a president. Trump is so brazen he’d rather lie to make himself appear more politically vengeful than tell the truth that his suggestion apparently was rebuffed. Tough guy. Gotta make da Dems quake in their boots, right?
Republicans, as they always do when Trump is shredding democracy, remained silent on Friday. Speaking more generally of Trump’s Twitter habits in an interview, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) declared the president to be a “freak.” Actually, if the allegations are true, he’s much worse than that.
Guardian:
Cull invasive mammals to save island species, experts urge
Move ‘would save 10% of all endangered birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles’
Nearly 10% of the world’s bird, mammal, amphibian and reptile species currently on the brink of extinction could be saved by killing invasive mammals such as cats and rats on 169 islands, according to a new study.
Empty suit or empty vessel? We will see. But he’s raising a ton of money.
Good for her. everyone should do this.
And finally since this has been talked about all weekend online:
Look, support him, or support anyone else. But get used to attacks. They are coming in the general.