Thread by @Usherwood

An evening stroll to clear the mind on Brexit

1/

The decision to push back to 12 March for MV2 is understandable (for May) both because of the likely problems in passing it this week and in reinforcing her strategy

2/

(A reminder, if one is needed, that this strategy is "the WA or no-deal")

3/

By pushing down to just a couple of weeks before 29 March, aided by some puff of wind from Cox on the backstop, May hopes to make MPs feel they really have no choice but to avoid no-deal by signing up to WA

4/

Two problems occur in the course of the stroll; one that's been clear for a while, the other only now more emergent

5/

The big problem that's been out there for weeks is that lots of MPs simply don't accept May's binary

6/

Either they think no-deal isn't that bad ( and there's no one they'd listen to who'd gainsay that), or they think May can be made to keep open other options

7/

The second, newer problem is that precisely because it's coming down to the wire, there has to be more talk about extension

8/

That's because getting the implementing legislation through a hostile Parliament is going to be a potentially time-consuming enterprise, even with the best whipping in the world and without an existing group of defecting MPs hanging about

9/

So if you think May has to ask for an extension in any case, then you'll also think that there's still life in other options than WA/no-deal

10/

Of course, that partly depends on the assumption that May wants a deal more than no-deal, which is highly debatable in the context of party unity, which we know she values very highly

11/

All of which brings us back to the central dilemma: right now we have lots of signalling by different actors, but very little of it is being taken seriously by others

So lots of second-guessing, and not all of it can be correct

12/

Which sounds like a recipe for a bad misjudgment in the next couple of weeks by someone

Something for another stroll sometime

/end