Thread by @lewis_goodall

Odd comments from the PM in Scotland:

"We've got to be clear that the backstop is no good. It's dead. It's got to go. The Withdrawal Agreement is dead. It's got to go. But there is scope to do a new deal."

It took May 550 days to negotiate the WA. A new one won't emerge in 90.

Not least when the British government's position is they won't even start negotiations unless the EU backs down on the backstop wholesale before they even start...

On the Withdrawal Agreement, the PM says: "There's no point coming out of the EU if you're going to be run by the EU and that was the result of the backstop."

To be clear, that's the Withdrawal Agreement Boris Johnson voted for.

"They've now got 29 Brexit Party MEPs sitting in Strasbourg not exactly full of the Ode to Joy. They're not going to want that to continue. So there's a big incentive on both sides to get this thing done."

The EU really doesn't care. Farage has been there for 20 years already.

His removal is a minor incentive, at best. If the PM really thinks this is a trump card (I suspect he doesn't) we're screwed. Moreover if the Euro Parliament is as risible body as Brexiters claim, why would it matter at all the bureaucrats who apparently run the thing?

PM is setting the bar too high. Surgery on the WA was going to be v tough to achieve, even with concerted British diplo effort and momentum of new PM. Ditching it will be impossible. Risk is BJ is squandering what little opportunity there is with demands which cannot be met.

Question then is, does he not realise and he's just blundering away or does he know it and the actual objective is to go for no deal, hope parliament blocks and go for an election on a Brexit prospectus? I suspect some variation of the latter but can never be certain with BJ.