Thread by @pmdfoster

Chequers is dead - like the murder on the Orient Express - it is killed by many hands.

So what next? My latest (Short thread)

telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/09/0…

Shorter:

No-one like's @theresa_may nifty dual tariff customs fix. Not the Brexiteers. Not the EU. Not Business.

So she can do Chequers 2.0. Make concessions and try to sell in Westminister against 'no deal' chaos late in the day. /2

@theresa_may Or we can take the @BorisJohnson @DavidDavisMP route and do a "generous" FTA and association agreement "as adumbrated at Lancaster House speech in 2017. /3

telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/…

@theresa_may @BorisJohnson @DavidDavisMP But let's remind ourselves what Lancaster House said.

It seems to be being cited as the primordial 'ur-text' on Brexit by Johnson/Davis.

But the customs part was just empty cakeism. But a year on, with Chequers 'fixes' dead, we are no close to reality. /4

@theresa_may @BorisJohnson @DavidDavisMP Boris concedes an FTA/Canada requires the Irish border question to be fixed.

But reverts to the same stuff that has already been ruled out as 'magical thinking'.

Border exemptions, AEOs etc etc. /5

@theresa_may @BorisJohnson @DavidDavisMP The EU isn't buying - whether out of principle or (as Boris and co suspect) part of a high stakes gambit by Dublin to use the border issue to keep the UK in a customs union

So here's a question:

Is the only way to get the EU to think more pragmatically to force a no deal? /6

@theresa_may @BorisJohnson @DavidDavisMP At that point the EU has to make its own choices.

Impose checks between Ireland and EU26 (assuming neither London or Dublin will impose a border) or get pragmatic, given 'unique' demands of preserving a peace in which the EU says it is invested.

The nuclear option? ENDS