Thread by @pmdfoster

Where @CitySamuel tears a whole in #Brexit backers who failed to realise they needed to compromise. But then....

telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/…

And the blames them for failing to cut through the continuity bias of Whitehall and Olly Robbins. But the problem was deeper than that... /2

The problem was that they never provided negotiable answers - Raab, Davis, Boris, Cox - to how the FTA they demanded addressed the Irish border issue and its constitutional knock-on effects.

No answers then; and as Parliament shows now, still none. /3

Was it that the civil servants, as they entered into that scoping process in 2017 on the 157 areas of Irish cross border co-operation didn’t work hard enough?

Coz you only need to look at at MaxFac with its need for 80% trade exemptions to see its built on sand /4

Or there was that dual-tariff FCA nonsense that - even if the tech cd be solved and the EU cd agree to collect tariffs on our behalf - was asking EU to allow U.K. to subsidise itself. So they said no. /5

So then the Brexiteers tried to show Robbins and co how it was done with the Malthouse Compromise - and refused to even accept an invite by NI biz groups like @ManufacturingNI to see the border? /6

This “why didn’t anyone stamp their feet harder” and demand an FTA or a full exit from the Customs Union is never followed by an examination of the corollary questions. /7

As we see ERG and DUP splitting this week, perhaps the answer is there.

Have an English Brexit, take the October backstop settlement and put a low-friction border in the Irish Sea.

Or do what Boris suggests in his leaked letter and put a border up in NI?? /8

May decided against both these options - for the Union and for U.K. business - but never faced down her party over the alternatives, or an honest cost-benefit analysis of leaving a CU anyway /9

There were choices to be made. There still are, but dishonestly and self-dellusion cannot be the basis for making them. Or for running a negotiation, or a country for that matter. Utterly dispiriting. /9

May’s deal was created by gravity, not strategy, given all of the above.

Why the Brexiteers couldn’t open their eyes to see that, vote for May’s deal and get on with it, is the most eloquent testimony of all to their refusal/inability (as @CitySamuel notes) to face facts.10/END