Thread by @Schroedinger99

I understand why people like @JohnRentoul are minded to support May's "deal". They wish to cleave (like all of us) to the illusion that we are led by grown-ups who know what they are doing and who have a coherent plan. But we need to grow up and face reality ourselves.
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The first thing to note is that May doesn't have a "deal" or anything approaching one. She has a Withdrawal Agreement. This provides
1) a commitment for us to pay ~£40bn to the EU;
2) gives us a "transition" period
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3) puts our own expats largely at the mercy of individual host countries in return for us being able to: strip EU citizens here of certain rights, put them at the mercy of our Home Office (in all its mendacity & misanthropy); and chuck them out if they stay abroad too long.
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4) binds us to an Ireland "backstop".

That's about it.

So what happens if we do go down this route?
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i) We enter "transition" and try to negotiate an actual deal. Since (as they have amply demonstrated) the politicians who will be negotiating this deal don't have a clue about how international trade works, this will be the longest trade negotiation in history.

Ergo,
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ii) we will enter a "transition extension". Nothing much will change during transition or the extension except travelling will become more inconvenient and we will lose all say in the rules we have to abide by and in pan-European science projects.
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Since it will be impossible to get a deal during transition or during the extension,

iii) we shall then enter the "backstop".
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Under the "backstop"
A) NI will be remain in a CU
B) NI will remain in the SM
C) GB will remain in the CU
D) GB will, to the extent it wishes to avoid trade barriers between NI and GB, remain aligned with SM regs.
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E) FoM will end and the papers will begin fill up with horror stories about the mistreatment of EU citizens by the UK Home Office and staff shortages across the NHS and industry.
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F) Regulatory barriers to trade in goods and (especially) services between GB and the E27 will start to kick in and begin to damage our economy more significantly.
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G) Our negotiations on a deal will hit a wall - since there is simply no way to maintain frictionless trade across the IRL/NI border, the NI/GB border, and the GB E27 border unless we all stay in the SM and a CU. We will have no leverage and the EU will be exasperated with us
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H) Since we are in a CU, we shall (by and large) be unable to negotiate any new trade deals.

I) We shall still have no say in any of the rules we still follow and will thereby lose a great deal of sovereignty and control.
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In other words, May's WA combines everything Brexiters hate about the EU with everything that Remainers hate about Brexit.

It is as dead as Michael Palin's parrot.
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