Thread by @tony_nog

1) Central #Brexit conundrums
It's comical & depressing that the current problems in #Brexit were set in stone 2 years ago by brexit leadership & have hamstrung it since

Brexit reduces to the following:
-The impossible deal
-The frameworks
-The wrong audience
-The failed joker

2) the Impossible deal
Vote Leave won promising a pain free, cost free, FoM free #Brexit
This cannot be delivered

Any meaningful Brexit will hit the economy badly

Any Brexit that doesn't will be a "betrayal of leave!!"

Any party delivering either will be destroyed

3) the Frameworks
The SM, CU & other entities are legal frameworks, made up of EU treaties, WTO & international law.

It is perfectly reasonable for the UK to opt in or out of these frameworks.

It is not reasonable to demand 27 sovereign nations change those frameworks for 1

4) the Wrong Audience
Brexiters have extensive support in the UK press & a ready platform on the BBC. They have significant leeway in presenting oversimplistic jingoism to UK audiences

But our deal is with 27 other audiences. And this grandstanding just makes us look foolish

5) the Failed Joker
#brexit leaders fell into 2 camps, those who didn't understand the above, and those who did but who thought we had a joker.

They believed that the EU was so craven & broken that we could bully them into a deal, the whole "they need us more than we need them"

6) of course they were wrong in this, and no-one really says "they need us" any more.

But there wasn't any plan B, nothing to fall back on if the bullying failed.

7) And this summarises the UK #Brexit position. We can't bully the EU so we *have* to work within the frameworks

We can bluster in our press about "bullying EU" but this just makes our position harder, no one in the EU is interested in the whining of a spoilt brat

8) We can opt in or out of the CU, SM etc but neither meets an acceptable outcome for Leave voters, and the frameworks (or inclination of the 27) don't allow anything in between.

So we're stuck, locked in the #Brexit paradox Vote Leave put us in & shouting at ourselves
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