The German Problem

[Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( [undefined]( Good morning, Get used to me saying "this week has been dominated by Brexit", because that's going to be the case for some time. In the Commons, only a small number of Labour MPs - just over a dozen - either voted with the government or abstained on the EU Withdrawal Bill, meaning that even a small Tory rebellion could see Theresa May defeated on key measures. However, if May has her way, Parliament will be less important than it once was. Number 10 have told Tory MPs they don't have to turn up and vote on Opposition Days. That turns the practice - seen as giving the opposition a chance to raise issues that otherwise might get ignored - into a meaningless talking shop. Labour's Angela Rayner is fighting back, trying to make a vote on tuition fee rises (which the government lost) into a binding commitment not to increase them. There's going to be lots of this in the months ahead. But is the big picture of a DUP-backed Tory majority threatened by these wrangles? It doesn't look that way. Helen [@helenlewis]( Editor's Picks [Jo Swinson on the marathon fight to overturn Brexit]( Helen Lewis interviews the Lib Dem deputy leader about her party's future. [Hurricane Irma and why the only thing worse than climate change denial is acceptance]( People don't like to be reminded of their own moral relativism when their homes are underwater, argues Laurie Penny. [Helen Lewis: being told to hate Tony Blair makes me feel like a useful idiot for the right]( The Blair-bashers of the left are following a line encouraged by the right: that the sin of Iraq is all we should remember of the New Labour era. [The greatest and the least loved: Chris Froome's extraordinary resilience]( Xan Rice on why the cycling champion is so underappreciated. [Banned, burned and reviled: what was so radical about Edna O'Brien's The Country Girls?]( Eimear McBride looks back at the political impact of one of the most famous, infamous and beloved Irish novels of the 20th century. [www.NewStatesman.com]( [Will Alex Salmond's attention seeking test the SNP's aversion to criticising their own?]( Chris Deerin argues that despite their ideological diversity, the nationalists are uncomfortable with internal dissent. ["We're not freaks, we're not weirdos": the online community that watches people die]( Ameila Tait asks why 200,000 people use Reddit to watch videos of death every day? [podcast]( To unsubscribe click: [here](