Thread by @PickardJE

am told cabinet ministers at Chequers were presented with three alternatives to May’s favoured “turd way”, all toxic:

1) EEA-plus: intolerable for Eurosceptics

2) No deal: intolerable for Hammond, Clark etc

3) Barnier proposal with border in Irish Sea: DUP would explode

analogy: displaying three alternative political dog turds before serving up political dog food

this isn’t the most pleasant metaphor, sincere apologies etc

you'll already be familiar with some of the *no deal* planning, which was the subject of a classic @ShippersUnbound front page over a month ago - featuring potential shortages of fuel, medicine and food
thetimes.co.uk/article/reveal…

but there's another little-known element of worst-case No Deal, which is pretty extraordinary: when I told one colleague about it he asked: "Have you been drinking?"

on this occasion, the answer was "no"

until now, you may not have paid too much attention to the single electricity market on the island of Ireland, one of the legacies of the Good Friday Agreement: in short, a large amount of power in Northern Ireland comes from south of the border...

in the event of a totally disruptive rupture with the bloc Whitehall officials fear that power providers in the republic could end the provision of electricity because the UK would no longer be part of the European electricity market...

The solution drawn up by panicked mandarins: thousands of electricity generators would have to be requisitioned at short notice and put on barges in the Irish Sea to help keep the lights on in Northern Ireland: here's my story
ft.com/content/dcd8bb…

Officials are modelling how they might have to bring back generators from far-flung countries such as Afghanistan – where the UK is still part of Nato-led operations - in order to prevent blackouts.

of course, some will dismiss this as Project Fear part II. But one government official said the idea of electricity barges in the Irish Sea was one of the most “gob-smacking” elements of no-deal preparations...

I promise not to tweet about the logistics of power distribution networks between 7pm and 9.30 pm this evening

here’s some reaction in the Guardian this evening theguardian.com/politics/2018/…

and finally, some background reading
publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cm…

Here’s a new take in the Independent
independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…

and more analysis overnight in the Irish Times google.co.uk/amp/s/www.iris…