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With all due respect, there’s a bit of a tunnel vision these days in UK pundits’ clever assurances that the EU will never turn down a Brexit extension request. In a nutshell, extension will be granted under certain conditions, refused otherwise. 1/
But first, Macron is serious, and will be even more than he was in March: the EU needs to turn the leaf and focus on its own problems, and the cost of uncertainty may be higher than the cost of no-deal. 2/
And no, no one really cares about the “blame game” if extension is turned down. Brexit is not, has never been, and probably never will be a political issue in Europe. So the question is: blamed by who? 3/
That said, extension will be impossible to turn down if a new government has taken over in London by October 31. And also impossible to turn down if the UK is headed for new general elections in the weeks after that. 4/
But if Boris comes asking for one because the law forces him to, without any election in sight? Absolutely not. It will be hard Brexit in October. 5/
This all makes Macron the better ally of the hardest Brexiteers, but he can suffer the indignity as the price of having a live showcase for everything that goes wrong when anti-EU furious crowds take over. 6/6
