It's clearly wrong to say that all the noises coming from Europe are theatre. If there weren't proposals that could potentially work for them, they wouldn't be doing this.
But the standard problem remains that it's hard to imagine anything acceptable to EU that would also be acceptable to DUP/ERG.
And a further incentive problem. If Johnson isn't sure he'll get it through Commons, the worst thing he could do would be to try, fail, then go for elections.
He'd lose his main electoral advantage, of showing Brexit voters he's untouched by compromise.
So the chances of a deal emerging remain very slim, I think, and the chances of it getting past Commons even slimmer.
