If you believed Fleet Street’s finest over the last few weeks, Theresa May’s “no deal is better than a bad deal” rhetoric is dead. Several of the Remain media’s wisest minds were writing this as recently as yesterday…

Sky News, 21 June: “One former minister told Sky News that ‘no deal is now dead’… Number 10 has toned down its language on the issue since the election.”

James Kirkup, 23 August: “Theresa May’s ‘no deal’ bravado is a thing of the past… May has come a long way from the days of ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’.”

The Scotsman, 28 August: “Mrs May and her Cabinet have softened their stance… distancing themselves from her rhetoric that ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’.”

George Parker, FT, 29 August: “The British prime minister’s ‘hard Brexit’ rhetoric and threat to leave the EU without a deal died in June.”

David Allen Green, FT, 29 August: “Remember the “no deal is better than a bad deal” swaggering? What a reversal.”

In Japan today the travelling Lobby asked May if she still thought no deal is better than a bad deal. She replied:

“Yes.”

Doh!

Obviously the government would prefer a good deal with the EU, however it has to be prepared to walk away in the event of a punishing offer from Brussels. To not be prepared to walk away from a bad deal is to be prepared to accept any deal offered. This was always the case, it remains the case, it is just common sense for the negotiations, despite what Remain publications have wrongly been telling their readers this past month. Some Brexit reporting from supposedly respectable remainstream journalists is just fantasy…