Extension would be a breach of promise, but it offers advantages which the Prime Minister’s vassal arrangement does not.
In over six hours of meetings, officials tried to make the tyres fall off the Malthouse Compromise, and couldn’t do so.
There are clear signs that Brussels is laying the ground for a compromise – we must not remove their incentive to produce one.
The former Brexit Secretary warns of the danger that MPs will believe the Government has not even demanded the necessary concessions from Brussels.
The Prime Minister’s previous form suggests that she will keep kicking the can down the road, or try to – even after the road runs out.
Even if the Exchange of Letters were viewed as just short of a treaty, it would be far from legally worthless.
The Prime Minister doesn’t need to endorse every dot and comma of it. But she does need to show the EU that the Commons and her Party can agree on something.
He advised the man who co-won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the Belfast Agreement – and argues that the backstop breaches it.
The UK will then, by negligence, have contributed to a catastrophic defence rift between the continents of Europe and North America.
In which the EU’s Chief Negotiator displays exactly the “magical thinking” that is decried when Brexiteers undertake it.
In English, Barnier said: “I’ll have done my job if, in the end, the deal is so tough on the British that they’d prefer to stay in the EU”.
Tony Connelly describes in painful detail the success of Irish negotiators in aligning themselves with the EU27, while leaving the Brits to flounder.
He expects her plan to be voted down on Tuesday, calls for a renegotiation which she could not conceivably lead – and rules out Norway Plus.
It is much preferable to pushing the country to the abyss, which will jeopardise the Conservative Party, the economy and Brexit itself.
If we need to leave with no deal and negotiate a free trade agreement during the transition period, so be it.
Extension would be a breach of promise, but it offers advantages which the Prime Minister’s vassal arrangement does not.