Thread by @pmdfoster

If there was any shred of doubt on the EU side about what @BorisJohnson tactics are here ahead of #euco it seems to have evaporated after last night.

Not seen EU sources so animated for a while... despair on several levels 1/thread

telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/…

@BorisJohnson First despair at the whole Boris 'Trumpson' routine and what it says about sincerity of any attempts to strike a deal which Parliament will back with help of Labour MPs.

"A new low" as one official put it. /2

@BorisJohnson Second, despair at the pitiful 'non-papers' that have been presented...the fourth one this week (on goods from GB-NI) was by all accounts barely even connected to the others. Clearly not a serious basis for a border solution /3

@BorisJohnson Third, despair - or rather a weary assumption - that Mr Trumpson will continue this grandstanding and outrage-stoking right up to an including the European Council #euco on October 17.

Understand meets with EU leaders at #UNGA19 in New York did nothing to suggest otherwise /4

@BorisJohnson Fourth, and last, and most genuinely I think despairing (since all of the above had been long expected) was the feeling that the UK really is about to go the full Trump.

A new politics based on division and unilateralism - and what that means for EU-UK in long term. /5

@BorisJohnson Where does this lead? Does it belatedly bring Parliament to its senses?

Is there a majority for May's deal, which protects trade and the Union? Perhaps allied to a second confirmatory referendum?

That's the closest thing that's ever shown a majority. Might it yet? 6/ENDS