Thread by @pmdfoster

So in a #Brexit nutshell.

The 230 vote defeat confronts us with the fact that the problem is bigger than the backstop or time-limits.

It is a brutal rejection of May's strategy of obfuscation.

So what now? 1/Thread

As @MichelBarnier has said this morning, the deal he brokered was a function of UK red lines - the consequences of which May never confronted.

All that nonsense about "frictionless trade" outside the Customs Union and Single Market.

Those lines surely now need to change. /2

@MichelBarnier Brexiteers were happy to hold May to account on the half of those promises the likes (on trade independence and frictionlessness) but never accept that the consequence when pointed out by the other side.

Now Parliament looks set to bring that game to a halt/3

/3

@MichelBarnier As have long been writing the row over the backstop and being 'trapped' was really a displacement activity designed to avoid reality of trade offs involved in leaving the Customs Union - as indeed was May's entire negotiation.

But that's over now. May is shot, so... /4

@MichelBarnier May can't go back to Brussels and 'sell' a deal without it first having a near-proven majority in Parliament.

The scale of her miscalculation makes this inevitable; EU leaders will rightly have no confidence.

She will be Parliament's proxy; an essentially secretarial role. /5

But that raises the odd prospect that Parliament may have mandated her to pitch a deal which conflicts with Tory manifesto, and which she may have whipped against. /6

But in any event it seems that we are now on a track where Brexit (the future not the divorce) needs to be defined before progress can be made.

In theory that’s all to the good...but of course th

...e obfuscation strategy was born out of a fear that forcing the issue risks breaking things.

But #brexit was always going to do that. If not now, then during the trade and future talks that May’s political declaration failed to define.

So perhaps better to do it now? /6

Apologies slightly erratic threading - failed to allow for the Channel Tunnel.

But the options are all there:
- May's deal No
- No Deal
- Revoke A50
- Permanent CU
- CU + SM
- FTA with NI special arrangements

Time to choose. 7/ENDS