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Back to Brexit, and @pmdfoster has the interesting view that maybe, just maybe, there's a path to a Brexit renegotiation for a new PM involving a long time limit on the backstop accompanied by other measures... telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/…
There's some formidable problems to a renegotiation - not least a new UK PM accepting the reality of negotiations taking years and it not being all over by October - also true for no-deal. But this is probably the single best way to judge the seriousness of leadership candidates
Equally there's a lot of hostility in Ireland and Brussels to the idea of any kind of time limit to the backstop - after all, it then isn't a backstop. So the idea can't stand on its own, it must be accompanied by other commitments as Foster suggests
I've always been struck when discussing the idea of a long time-limited backstop that it gets engagement, there's something workable there, its not unrealistic like alternative arrangements in place by next Thursday and an FTA the following week.
Full disclosure, some will recall I suggested something similar in January in an article originally online for the Telegraph. It was of course ignored by the powers that be insisting everything could be easily sorted. Any sign of reality hitting yet? /end linkedin.com/pulse/brexit-d…
Now for the threaded version of the @pmdfoster article on the potential for a long time limit on an Irish backstop. He doesn't know if it would work. But at least it is actually engaging with reality, not repeating the same old same old
