,
8 tweets,
2 min read
Read on Twitter
So, because all my predictions are wrong, here’s another. No 10 continues to ramp up the language on no deal. Effectively making negots impossible with EU. Parliament returns and signals opposition to no deal. 1/8
Johnson uses this as excuse to call an election ‘to let me deliver what you voted for in 2016’. Will be a horrible 'people versus parliament' campaign. The calculation is that he can win back enough Brexit Party voters. 2/ 8
Who the hell knows what happens in that election. But if he wins a majority, big question is whether he uses it to go for no deal or - more likely IMHO - for a NI only backstop, allowing him to do an FTA with EU 3/8
Would need enough of a majority to overcome any ERG hostility to this. So No10 presumably hoping a raft of popular policy announcements plus in-fighting within Labour might make that happen. 4/8
Of course, if we end up back where we are now in terms of parliamentary numbers, God knows what happens then. 5/8
And if the gamble doesn't pay off, and we end up with a Corbyn Gov, perhaps dependent on LD and SNP support, we can prepare for two referendums....6/8
I'm pretty confident that EU will give us a delay for that election and don't see why the PM won't ask for it under those circumstance. Might even help him ('parliament have already forced me to ask for this delay I don't want by blocking clean Brexit') 7/8
What the PM can't control, though, is how parliament might signal its opposition to no deal. If it is via a no confidence vote which he loses, then obvs it was a massive error. 8/8
