Thread by @Staedtler

What Sabine Weyand said.

1. There is no renegotiation of the withdrawal agreement which Europe is now moving ahead with the ratification

2. The UK-wide Customs Union is what Britain asked for.

3. Any sort of time limit to the backstop would defeat the purpose of it in the first place.

4. There cannot be allowed to reach a point where the backstop expires and leaves the Irish border unresolved

5. Choice quote: "Discussion in London about the future relation is uninhibited by knowledge of the withdrawal agreement."

6. The future relation may supersede the backstop by an even closer relation, but the only way to guarantee the Good Friday Agreement is by having that permanent minimum.

7. Nobody has been able to find any alternative arrangements that guarantee an open border in Ireland.

8. And then she said "The backstop is not a prerequisite for the future relation."

And then she explained it. You can still find ways in future to dispense with the backstop, if any ever exist, but the backstop still has to be there within the withdrawal agreement.

And finally, this is where I draw my conclusions.
Parliament won't ratify the withdrawal agreement as it is, but Europe won't renegotiate it, and especially not this most contentious point about the backstop and customs union.

And if this carries on, that parliament won't ratify and Europe won't renegotiate, the only two options are that we leave with no agreement or we don't leave at all.

I said way back at the beginning it would come down to this in the end.

And I think what I've thought all along, that the Tories are going to abandon the whole thing.
I haven't seen anything in the last two years to persuade me else.