Thread by @WomaninHavana

Prepare for more high-handed outrage about the EU today as Britain is back on the back foot.

We could have drafted a first Withdrawal Agreement.

We didn’t.

Because how do you get Agreement when the Foreign Sec wants a hard Irish border to accompany his ambition?

And how do you get Agreement when you don’t actually show up to negotiate?

Britain’s full of #FireAndFury but there’s not enough substance behind the endless speeches.

The devil has always been in the inconvenient Brexit detail.

Shiny rose-tinted pronouncements on the fantastic days ahead don’t cut even the English mustard.

#BrexitShambles

The govt may have rammed a half-baked Withdrawal Bill through the Commons, but they won’t get a half-baked Withdrawal Agreement past the EU.

(Btw, Lords aren’t impressed with #EUWithdrawalBill & govt’s lack of detail)

Brexit #FireAndFury is consistently for a domestic audience.

But Brexit isn’t just about what we do (or say) within our borders. It centres crucially about the detail of what happens beyond our borders, on our border & of the Irish border.

20+ months on, time to #GetReal.

Today, confronted with 120 pages of “dense legal prose”, the govt will have to #GetReal.

It could have got there first & done the first draft #WithdrawalAgreement.

It didn’t.

No amount of #FireAndFury or dishonesty will get the govt out of avoiding Brexit’s tough choices.

Finally, whatever the outrage today, remember PM May, aided & abetted by Parliament, prematurely triggered Article 50 without any idea of the detail as to how this would pan out.

Even a red, white & blue Brexit still needs to be settled in the certain black ink of law. /ends