Thread by @pmdfoster

So @BorisJohnson has put out his "plan" for #Brexit.

Predictably, it has had holes picked in it - since there are indeed plenty of mighty assumptions in the 'plan'.

But I fear that misses the point. This is a political document, not a technical one. 1/

telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/…

@BorisJohnson And when you read it in that light, it becomes rather more persuasive.

Brexit is indeed a muddle and a mess. The British frog is indeed being boiled. Brexit probably always was/is more binary than both sides have properly allowed. /2

@BorisJohnson I am not at all sure Boris is right that Whitehall and the EU conspired to keep the UK in a customs union, for example, but that will be a powerful anti-narrative if that's where we end up.

FWIW my conversations in Europe suggest rather different. /3

@BorisJohnson The EU has to offer UK a customs union in order to offer a solution to the Irish border issue. Doesn't mean they want that outcome.

Fr, De officials doubt whether, long term, its workable for UK to be 'outside the room' and have trade deals handed down to it from Brussels. /4

@BorisJohnson My bet is that - judging from the reaction to Chequers - Boris's 'rip it up and start again' narrative will be persuasive to the vast majority of folk who don't follow the detail, don't want to accept or understand the conundrums posed by Ireland etc. /5

@BorisJohnson This is observation, not judgment. Not sure it takes us any further.

Except to say that all this latent disatisfaction is born out of a failure to level with the public on so many levels. /ENDS