‘Lawmakers can stop no-deal Brexit’

Bloomberg

Lawmakers in the UK House of Commons are holding cross-party talks in a bid to stop Prime Minister Theresa May from leaving the European Union without a trade deal, the main opposition Labour Party’s finance spokesman said.
“It’s not going to happen,” John McDonnell told BBC Television’s “Andrew Marr Show” on Sunday. “I don’t think there’s a majority in Parliament for no deal. I think on a cross-party basis, you will see in the debates in the coming weeks, the government will get the message: There will be a deal.”
Ministers have continued to say that it would be better for the UK to quit the bloc in 2019 with no agreement on the future trading relationship rather than negotiate a bad deal. They’ve said contingency plans are being drawn up, though Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said the expectation is that an accord will be reached, even after the latest round of negotiations conducted by Brexit Secretary David Davis ended in deadlock in Brussels last week.
The talks are “where I would have expected them to be”
at this stage, Grayling said on the BBC. “Nobody ever tho-
ught we were going to have negotiations that would last half an hour.”
May discussed the Brexit talks during a Sunday morning phone call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and the two leaders agreed “on the importance of continued constructive prog-ress,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement.