With the death of Pope Francis, the world loses not only a church leader but also a moral compass

THE script isn’t Tarantino. Theresa May is hardly Mrs Blonde. But Britain’s Brexit debate is becoming a painful form of national torture that could have been plucked straight from Reservoir Dogs.
Labour might mock the civil war and political disintegration of the Conservative government. The Nasty Party is back with a vengeance.
One-Nation Tories are as much of an endangered species as Yazidi Kurds. Parliament is gridlocked by daily recriminations that fill our newspapers and TV screens. But the issues at stake are too big to be left to the politics of derision.
For me, all serious options point towards a “People’s Vote.” This doesn’t mean the outcome would be any different. The nation is apparently divided a third, a third, a third, but there is a principle at stake. It is the trade union principle that negotiators negotiate, but the final say (on the final deal) always rests with the members. I don’t expect William Rees-Mogg to grasp this principle, but Labour ought to.
ALAN SIMPSON warns of a dystopian crossroads where Trump’s wrecking ball meets AI-driven alienation, and argues only a Green New Deal can repair our fractured society before techno-feudalism consumes us all


