Thread by @DavidHenigUK

You know the drill by now. This may be significant and a deal on the way.

Or this may not be significant and a deal not on the way.

Take your pick.

https://twitter.com/JamesCrisp6/status/1341335442176823298

Also significant. Or not. A deal. Or a no-deal. Or he wants to wish us all a merry Christmas.

https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1341325087815962624

One thing though - be careful about leader level calls helping to unlock a situation. They could be for negotiators to demonstrate that their political instructions are to go no further, or to present politically a new proposal. It could be good news as well. We still wait.

If the UK and EU want a deal that looks roughly like the one we've known about since June there will be a deal. If they don't, there won't. The rest, as they say, is noise.

And somewhat less flippantly, you would expect a last round of briefings in the EU, along the lines of, here are the UK's final offers, here is where they might go one final step, where we might, hence we are headed deal / no-deal on that basis.

Never got the strand of Brexit twitter which puts every event into proving there either is or isn't about to be a UK-EU deal. If as looks possible the UK has quietly folded on all issues of principle (sorry, both sides have made concessions) then a deal looks likely. If not, not.

Those UK red lines - no trade checks between Northern Ireland and Great Britain (gone), no level playing field beyond EU-Canada (apparently gone), no linkage between trade preferences and fishing (apparently gone). Yes the EU will compromise detail. But not principle.

Seeing a few ERG MPs tweeting about the importance of fish today... think they're expecting the PM is about to abandon the hardline positions, go for the FTA, and also in so doing cement the Withdrawal Agreement they didn't particularly like. For them the FTA will not be a win.