Thread by @DmitryOpines

1/ Most Tory PM candidates plan to head to Brussels to negotiate a 'better deal' if selected.

Most, like Jeremy Hunt (championed Mark Garnier MP with @Emmabarnett below) have refused to say what they'll put on the table in such a negotiation.

Let's consider the options.

https://twitter.com/bbc5live/status/1140922028184068096

2/ The first and most obvious opening gambit will be for a UK Prime Minister to say:

"If you re-open the Withdrawal Agreement and remove or significantly limit the backstop, that will create a deal the UK Parliament can pass."

This a simple trade, backstop out to avert No-Deal.

3/ If this is to be sufficient, the EU would have to fear No-Deal more than:

(1) It values a guarantee for the Irish Border; &
(2) It values the credibility it would lose by reversing a position oft-repeated at national leader and Commissioner/EU President level.

4/ For the above to be true, one has to further assume either:

(1) Theresa May either didn't ask for this, or didn't ask for it properly;
(2) The EU's resolve on the issue has weakened as No-Deal looms closer; or
(3) The EU were bluffing the entire time.

5/ If removing the threat of No-Deal isn't in and of itself sufficient to move the EU off its Backstop red line, then I can see only two possibilities for the UK delegation:

(1) Trading the EU something it wants; or
(2) A heretofore undiscovered creative solution.

6/ Mr Sajid David has explored one trading route.

He advocates the UK offering costs of any border infrastructure/updates Ireland may require in exchange for removing the backstop.

This assumes Ireland is significantly motivated by the construction cost of some border posts.

7/ Mr Johnson has suggested trading the so called 'Divorce Bill'. Under him, removing or limiting the backstop would unlock (over decades) the 39 billion pounds he would otherwise withhold.

Setting the legalities and ethics of this aside, this is another commercial assumption.

8/ Other proposed trades could emerge, but to date there has been very little discussion in the UK of what the EU might want that the UK could offer.

This isn't to say no such trade off exists, only that it hasn't (to my knowledge) been identified by candidates or commentators.

9/ There is also the possibility, as Mr Garnier suggests to Ms Barnett, that like-minded people gathered around the table might discover through negotiation and accommodation some new creative solution, which allows a way forward without crossing anyone's red lines.

10/ As negotiators, finding a clever solution like this is certainly what we aspire to do.

Charting an undiscovered safe route through red lines previously considered impassable is the best feeling in the world.

Unfortunately, it's also really hard.

11/ While it's impossible to rule out an epiphany striking Mr Hunt or Mr Johnson at the negotiating table and cracking this thing wide open, it seems only fair to concede that no such epiphany has to date struck any of the thousands of people who have considered this issue.

12/ The EU does not want to risk a position where it is forced to demand Ireland choose between friction at its borders with Northern Ireland or at its borders with the EU.

The UK does not want to sign up to a backstop it cannot legally unilaterally exit.

Them's the breaks.

13/ The above thread is, as best as I can hypothesize, the suite of options for a UK negotiating team under whichever Prime Minister emerges from the Tory contest.

As always, I welcome contributions from others more experienced or simply more creative than myself. /end