The upcoming Conservative Party leadership campaign may serve to close down any room for manoeuvre when it comes to Brexit according to Professor Philip Cowley in The Spectator. He writes: “You can, if you like, believe that the only thing preventing the EU giving us a different/better exit deal is that Theresa May was just not stern enough with them, and that when presented with a true believer, someone who is prepared to play hard ball, the EU will crumble where previously they have been unyielding. Perhaps the threat of a no deal Brexit, if the new Prime Minister looks like they really mean it, will make the EU change their minds, despite the fact they have explicitly said they will not. I doubt it, but you may be right. In which case, there is an easy way out of this. The new PM and the EU agree a new deal, sans backstop presumably, which Conservative MPs and the DUP can support and it’s all over by 31 October. But if this isn’t what transpires, what then?”