Thread by @Staedtler

We're ten months down already. There's no sign of a new treaty, there's never going to be.

Ah. Now we're back to the use of language again.
Deal. What the fuck is deal? What does deal mean? Deal can mean anything. You can make a deal in two minutes.

But you're not talking about a "deal" are you? No. You are not. You are talking about an international treaty which carries the force of law and must be ratified through 27 parliaments and Wallonia.

You see? Sloppy language, sloppy thinking and finally sloppy behaviour.

You don't do "deals" with Europe. What you do is negotiate a trade agreement and then ratify it in law.

And people still acting like they can come up with something on the last afternoon.
Any treaty would have to be drawn up in full legal language and then ratified, we're talking a minimum of six months.

That means by September, and you can't do anything over the summer anyway, so it would have to be finished by July. Finished and written in legal terms. Which means the negotiations complete by May.

And seeing the outline can't possibly be agreed, even theoretically, till the end of March, what we got left?

April and May. Two months, what?

Two months to negotiate and fully conclude the most extensive and complex trade agreement in the history of ink.

Alright, alright. So let's stop being silly, what does it all mean?

It means that there is not going to be a new treaty with the European Union. As they've said all along, but there's no possible time left to do it now anyway.

So?
So, some time between now and the end of this year it is going to become an accepted fact that there will be no new trade agreement.

So the political conversation will have changed drastically from what it is now. Fact will have asserted itself. We will all know there is no new treaty coming our way. No new "deal"

And here's a thing we may pause to reflect.
Theresa may cannot remain prime minister after the country has become aware that there is no new treaty with Europe.

So it seems that by careful logic, Theresa May's political survival depends entirely on the country being ignorant that there is no new treaty with Europe.

Alright then. Theresa May can only survive as long as no one finds out there's no new treaty.
So how long before people find out?

I would say the end of March. It will start to dawn on people, hang on . . . we're not getting a new treaty, are we?
We can't know, I suppose, but we can guess they're going to pretty well cheesed. To say the least.

So at a wild guess, I think the Tories have about two months to get rid of Theresa May, or they're going to lose everything they care about.