Thread by @jonworth

This line from Labour - no election before No Deal is off the table - sounds superficially right. But how can it actually be done?

https://twitter.com/shippersunbound/status/1187619085154209793

The first part is easy. The EU needs to offer an Article 50 Extension.

That ought to be clear today. And then No Deal is off the table until 31 January 2020.

But is that enough for Labour?

If it’s not, it gets messy.

The further No Deal danger is at the end of the transition period - that the UK could crash out then.

@singharj explains how @NickBoles wants to close that loophole in the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB) here: m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/brexit-n…

But there are two problems.

First - as the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB) won’t pass before an election, you would need a curious Bill to get this guarantee. A kind of “if the WAB ever passes then remove the No Deal loophole”

Second - one Parliament cannot bind another. So if the Tories won a massive majority they can just pass a different Withdrawal Agreement Bill anyway.

Of course if there were some trust between Number 10 and Opposition that would help overcome something like this.

But there isn’t, and Labour rightly fears tricks from Johnson and his team.

Until this one is overcome Labour will not give Johnson his 2/3 majority for an election.

/ends