Thread by @pmdfoster

As MPs prepare to vote on different #Brexit routes, might be worth getting one thing straight.

You WILL NOT, repeat NOT, be able to renegotiate the Withdrawal Agreement during an extension.

How do we know this?

1/quick thread

Why does this even saying? Well officials tell me that MPs still reckon that a delay is a route to a different deal. @TomMcTague @Jack_Blanchard_ report the same here.

Hard to believe, but after all this time, this torrent of verbiage, they still don't get the basics. /2

@TomMcTague @Jack_Blanchard_ But the reality of the conditions that will be attached to an extension to Article 50 is there, in black and white, in the text of last week's agreement to extend to April 12. /3

file:///H:/Downloads/UKEUextension%20(1).pdf

@TomMcTague @Jack_Blanchard_ And just in case there was a teensy, weensy bit of doubt that the EU "were just saying that" and that the UK - a la David Davis - wouldn't need to consider it binding in some way, the European Council attached the letter from Our Man In Brussels, Sir Tim Barrow. /4

@TomMcTague @Jack_Blanchard_ Indeed, it was very notable at Donald Tusk's @eucopresident press conference in Brussels last week that he explicitly retold how he'd been to see @theresa_may several times to square away the terms and conditions. Just to be sure there would be no backsliding. /5

@TomMcTague @Jack_Blanchard_ @eucopresident @theresa_may Amazing this has not penetrated to all parts of Westminster.

But a long extension is not a fix in itself. It will not 'fix' the deal. It will only give time (if EU grants it) for the UK side to try and reach a consensus on way forward.

I hear you screaming already. 6/ENDS