Thread by @pmdfoster

Turn on my radio this morning, and just hear the sound of Westminster talking to itself.

Reminds me of the days after the Chequers deal? Correspondents totting up votes for a deal that - barring serious EU-turns - isn't negotiable. /1

The EU is being polite, for reasons I've tried to explain here - the blame game, the slow-dance, because - to borrow a Johnsonian phrase - the Blue and Gold team has no interest in "collapsing the ruck". The door will be open 24/7, coffee always on. /2

telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/…

But go through the deal line by line (see below) and it's clear - as @LeoVaradkar says - it is hugely problematic.

(See below for attempt to look at it part by part - customs, vat, goods etc - and where it will/wont fly. /3

telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/…

@LeoVaradkar The UK gambit can be summarised as this, I think.

1. NI-RoI trade is <1% of UK-EU trade.

2. Ergo. If UK runs fully regulated GB-NI border, risk to EU single market is LOW.

3. Ergo. Give us massive exemptions to EU customs rules to make border work.

Can EU swallow? /4

@LeoVaradkar The EU has always said this isn't totally beyond bounds of possibility - particularly if NI , for example, is in VAT area of EU.

Then, if FTA concluded with UK and its operational and working, you COULD get to long term border solution. /5

@LeoVaradkar BUT "unless and until" that happens - which was key phrase of the Irish 'all weather' backstop - you need stability for Ireland. It's something that gets worked out over many years.

That's why 'alternative arrangements' were part of the original, rejected backstop. /6

@LeoVaradkar Think of that as a careful courtship, whereas what the UK seems to be proposing at the moment is a shotgun wedding.

EU agrees, in next 10 days, to a sweeping bunch of exemptions, no checks at the border in perpetuity - and the fallout to be sorted in a 14 month transition./7

@LeoVaradkar Just not sure - with Benn Act in place - that that is where it goes.

Reccommend this thread by former No 10 Brexit adviser @RaoulRuparel who has frontline experience. /8 ENDS

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