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Let me have a little go at this tweet. My claim is that there is a long way to go before Labour's position becomes, as John says, 'absolutely clear'. 1/
Labour's first preference is a general election. The tweet concedes that is not likely to be possible. But... let's assume it is. The immediate question is: what would Labour's policy be? What offer would it seek to make? Will it pursue its 'better' Brexit (if so, how)? 2/
Will it instead move to support remain in the GE? If so, would that be linked to a PV, or would a mandate for revoke result from GE victory? What is being done to answer these questions (and who will decide)? The GE might well hove into view very quickly. 3/
Next - 'I will do anything I can to block no deal Brexit'. Really? The way to block no deal is (as TM has said) either to agree a deal; or to agree to revoke A50. Labour did not support the Cherry amendment. 4/
Will it now support legislation to change the default to revoke; if a deal has not been agreed by Parliament by the end of the extension period? If not, it cannot credibly be said that Labour is doing whatever it can to block no deal. 5/
And finally, 'I support going back to the people in another referendum'. A referendum will not happen without majority Parliament support. How will Labour obtain that? And, even more difficult, what will the question be? 6/
Incredibly, there is still some doubt over whether remain would be an option; and also, if it was, whether Labour would campaign for remain. Emily Thornberry made that pledge yesterday - it is strikingly missing here. 7/
The harder question is what the leave option(s) should be. PV campaigners generally were agreed on a WA v remain PV. That is impossible now. So will it be 'no deal' v remain? And how will 'no deal' be defined? 8/
The Labour leadership seem to think that it can win back remainers by making positive noises about a confirmatory vote. As I hope I've shown, there are a lot of difficult questions it still needs to answer. 9/9
