JonM

What are they going to do - send some more letters?

I can see the argument that she doesn't need to do anything except kick the can down the road a bit more. The EU has said the deal is not open for renegotiation. All Mrs. May has to do is to keep the clock ticking until March. Faced with the imminent reality of a Thelma and Louise style no-deal exit in a couple of weeks, MPs will start to see things differently.

We do. The Blair government changed the maximum penalty to life imprisonment. Until then, capital punishment was the mandatory sentence for high treason - the only remaining death penalty on the statute books at that time. When Philip Hammond was Foreign Secretary during the coalition government, he said that British people joining IS in Syria & Iraq might be charged with Treason. Of course, making threats against people is illegal whether or not they are ministers of the crown.

I have to right-click and open in a new tab, on Firefox.

Sounds like you know a lot more about it than I do. Herons are relatively common here (although I only see them once or twice per year at most.) Egrets used to be very rare in the UK, but their range has gradually expanded from France into Southern England over the last 20-30 years. Ibis are currently very rare visitors, but the expectation is that if we continue to get warmer, they'll start breeding here.

Saw a Little Egret up a tree in the village today. Never seen one before and thought it was a heron, but some knowledgeable people came along and checked it on the internet and from the photos, seems they were right.

I'm pretty sure she will have a plan B. She'll have a pretty good idea of how things are going to pan out and will have worked out what to do next, depending on the scale of the defeat, perhaps and which way the DUP would go on a no-confidence vote. I guess her options are resign, carry on or say that she's listened to parliament and will go back to Brussels to try again.

Another scenario then. She loses the vote on Tuesday, with Labour, DUP and some Conservatives voting against. She has to do something pretty much immediately to retain the DUP support. Otherwise, next day, Corbyn brings in a vote of no confidence which she loses. There's then 14 days for someone to form a government (which nicely ends on Boxing Day because the Fixed Term Parliament Act doesn't mention time out for holidays or weekends.) Otherwise we automatically get a general election.

The whole thing is going to drag on for many years, whatever happens next. If she loses the vote (which seems likely) and she then resigns, which seems likely in the circumstances, what comes next? Seems pretty obvious that there's no leader or policy for the Conservative party to rally round, they would be seriously split at that point. Can't see Conservative MPs wanting a general election that would put Corbyn into no. 10.

So - if Theresa May loses the vote next week (which currently looks likely) and she then resigns (which I assume she would), that makes her the 4th consecutive Conservative PM whose time at number 10 was ended by the European split within the party. Where does this idea that the Tories always unite when the chips are down come from?

You might want to look into how a 5th century Bishop of Rome decided that December 25th was the day to go for. At the time, it was the date of the winter solstice. I don't think you'll find any religious historic source disagreeing that it replaced an existing Roman solstice festival. No date is mentioned in the bible and the gospel stories tend to point at September rather than midwinter. Of course, for most of history, for most Christians, Christmas was much less important than Easter or Epiphany.

If we do go for the Thelma & Louise option, I'm fairly sure the Irish government already know that they're in the car with us. I'd expect the EU to be airlifting food to Ireland before us though.

Well, their lead singer Jello Biafra has definitely lost a few court cases in his time too. Including one for defrauding the rest of the band of royalties for a decade...

Tsk, five posts and no-one has said "The French are revolting!"

Nice speech from Viscount Hailsham (aka Douglas Hogg, minister in the Thatcher & Major years) in the Lords. He's voting in favour of Mrs. May's withdrawal agreement because it will be a disaster, whereas "a no deal would be a calamity."