Thread by @pmdfoster

So @Jeremy_Hunt makes the 'good cop' gambit for #Brexit in his @BBCr4today interview with @bbcnickrobinson - can that work? Mmmm. It is interesting. Thread /1

@Jeremy_Hunt @BBCr4today @bbcnickrobinson Hunt's first point correct: the EU stopped giving concessions in Dec-April because it had no confidence that it would get May over the line. Why make concessions for nothing?

So might a new (more moderate) PM make a difference? /2

@Jeremy_Hunt @BBCr4today @bbcnickrobinson This is clearly Hunt's contention - he'll be less scary to the EU than the 'populist' (as EU has them) @DominicRaab @BorisJohnson and so the EU might be more accommodating.

And indeed, such a position does throw up potentially awkward optics for the EU /3

@Jeremy_Hunt @BBCr4today @bbcnickrobinson @DominicRaab @BorisJohnson The EU has made a mantra out of the Withdrawal Agreement been fixed/closed, and it will argue that it negotiated this deal with a government, not a personality, and that it stands whoever takes charge.

But that risks looking very intransigent if earnest good cop Hunt is there/4

@Jeremy_Hunt @BBCr4today @bbcnickrobinson @DominicRaab @BorisJohnson Because as @Mij_Europe points out, there WAS a brief window back at the start of the year when serious member state diplomats (and I don't just mean Poland) were not completely ruling out ideas like a long time-limit to the Irish backstop /5

https://twitter.com/mij_europe/status/1133274267574067201?s=12

@Jeremy_Hunt @BBCr4today @bbcnickrobinson @DominicRaab @BorisJohnson @Mij_Europe That brief moment - and it was put to the test - all evaporated when @theresa_may took completely the opposite lesson from her 230-vote margin defeat than the EU had expected. /6

@Jeremy_Hunt @BBCr4today @bbcnickrobinson @DominicRaab @BorisJohnson @Mij_Europe @theresa_may Instead of shifting towards the 'middle ground' (a customs union, essentially) she went the 'full Malthouse', started trying to unpick her own deal, even briefly flirted with 'no deal'. At that point the EU side completely lost it. /7

@Jeremy_Hunt @BBCr4today @bbcnickrobinson @DominicRaab @BorisJohnson @Mij_Europe @theresa_may Is it possible to reset the negotiation to access that compromise space again? The EU don't want to go there...but they equally don't want a 'no deal'.

Might a 'moderate' leader like @Jeremy_Hunt (at least today's version of Hunt) make them more disposed? /8

@Jeremy_Hunt @BBCr4today @bbcnickrobinson @DominicRaab @BorisJohnson @Mij_Europe @theresa_may Yes it is true no-one wants to 'throw the Irish' under the bus....but equally, there's plenty of member states who (having bought Barnier's deal) are now showing some remorse over the fact that we are approaching a dangerous rupture because of the Irish border. /9

@Jeremy_Hunt @BBCr4today @bbcnickrobinson @DominicRaab @BorisJohnson @Mij_Europe @theresa_may So that's all the 'good news'...the prospect of reaching back in time and grasping that half-glimpsed compromise that avoids a car-crash that no-one really wants.

But here's the hard part... /10

@Jeremy_Hunt @BBCr4today @bbcnickrobinson @DominicRaab @BorisJohnson @Mij_Europe @theresa_may Hunt talks vaguely about a compromise bring in other parties (not labour), but the minute you get into the detail of that, you hit the same old walls.

Take a 'time-limit' on the backstop, which is what EU side reckons UK most likely to go at..../11

@Jeremy_Hunt @BBCr4today @bbcnickrobinson @DominicRaab @BorisJohnson @Mij_Europe @theresa_may Does the DUP buy that? If so why? Again, I had conversations many months ago when 3-5 year time limits weren't completely ruled out of court in Belfast, at least to the point of "we'd have to consider it".

And in any event, it's still essentially the backstop../12

@Jeremy_Hunt @BBCr4today @bbcnickrobinson @DominicRaab @BorisJohnson @Mij_Europe @theresa_may Let's say the EU agreed a 5-10 year time limit, it's still (in the absence of unicorn alternative arrangements) a one-way ticket to a customs union.

With Farage breathing down everyone's neck, with Labour now sinking its teeth into 2nd ref, can that really fly? /13

@Jeremy_Hunt @BBCr4today @bbcnickrobinson @DominicRaab @BorisJohnson @Mij_Europe @theresa_may Recall that in all those Strasbourg declarations the UK really wrung dry the good faith assurances cards. But could these be re-packaged? And if they were, is a figure as flip-floppy and bloodless as @Jeremy_Hunt the man to resell them? /14

@Jeremy_Hunt @BBCr4today @bbcnickrobinson @DominicRaab @BorisJohnson @Mij_Europe @theresa_may Or could Boris and Raab sell them? As I wrote recently do you need a hawk to sell the peace?

telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/…

Which points to a Catch-22 for the EU side.../15

@Jeremy_Hunt @BBCr4today @bbcnickrobinson @DominicRaab @BorisJohnson @Mij_Europe @theresa_may Officials and dips clear that they could not be seen to reward 'populist' Boris/Raab PM "by giving them what they refused May" - and yet, if they gave those same concessions to someone like Hunt, they'd doubt he could sell them - so he'd be in same spot as May was. /16

@Jeremy_Hunt @BBCr4today @bbcnickrobinson @DominicRaab @BorisJohnson @Mij_Europe @theresa_may Brexit is just so godammed circular, binary and unspinnable!

Hunt tries something reasonable, but when you focus on trying to open up the space, the walls just close in again. /17

@Jeremy_Hunt @BBCr4today @bbcnickrobinson @DominicRaab @BorisJohnson @Mij_Europe @theresa_may And none of the above really takes in the EU's own politics.

The are also entrenched on the backstop. They might regret @MichelBarnier backstop gambit...but can they really go back on it now? Certainly not for Boris or Raab. And if for Hunt or similar, is it worth it? /18

@Jeremy_Hunt @BBCr4today @bbcnickrobinson @DominicRaab @BorisJohnson @Mij_Europe @theresa_may @MichelBarnier Just consider how overwhelmingl pro-EU Ireland has become, and how febrile the UK's departure makes the wider intra-EU27 dynamics. At this point, there really isn't that much political space for a sudden change of heart. /19

@Jeremy_Hunt @BBCr4today @bbcnickrobinson @DominicRaab @BorisJohnson @Mij_Europe @theresa_may @MichelBarnier Because in the end - despite all the ludicrous denials - the #Brexit deal is born of gravity. It is the ineluctable product of the choices posed by Brexit.

The real danger now is that the only route to a deal, is via a 'no deal'. We'll get there, but at huge cost.

ENDS/20