Watching Brexit unfold at the moment is like being confronted with one of those Hieronymus Bosch paintings depicting a rather gruesome Bryan Rix farce. All sorts of shocking stuff is going on simultaneously right across the canvas so you have to spend an age looking at the picture and even then you can't figure out what's actually happening. Let's start with Raab the minister of state at DEXEU declaring firmly that the backstop must be time limited (HERE) and Britain must leave the customs union.
This is a week before the October summit. It's difficult to see how this can be fudged. The EU say if it's time limited then it isn't a backstop and when you think about it the position of the Brexiteers is ridiculous. Trade talks may go beyond the time limit or they might fail to find a solution in which case what is to happen? How is a hard border in Ireland to be avoided then?
Elsewhere, Theresa May's spokeswoman (or perhaps it was May herself doing a Donald Trump?) refused four times to say the backstop would have a strict end date (HERE) only that it would be "temporary". What's the difference between "time limited" and "temporary"? On the surface there is none, yet the PM's spokesperson adamantly refused to confirm the words that Raab had used or give a date when we exit the CU.
Bear in mind, she agreed the Joint Report last December and I assumed she had a solution in mind for the backstop but clearly not. She was so desperate to move onto trade talks that she agreed to something that now seems like untying a spectacularly difficult Gordian knot, if it's possible at all.
Next we get the Irish Deputy PM and Foreign Minister, Simon Coveney saying the Republic cannot accept a time limit on the backstop (HERE) essentially reconfirming the EU's long stated position.
What is puzzling about this by the way is the sheer number of Brexiteers who say a frictionless border in Ireland is quite easy. If so, why not accept the backstop? Apparently this is quite impossible.
Off to the side is Tim Montgomerie, the creator of the Conservative Home website, with hair on his chin that can't make up its mind if it's a beard or five o'clock shadow, calling on the PM in no nonsense style to "go and go now" (HERE). He provides a litany of failures that May is guilty of - and he's right on all of them. Don't forget that about six cabinet ministers are also threatening to resign. Leadsom, Mordant and McVey are in the picture plotting behind a wooden scaffold being hurriedly put together for the PM if she fails to quit next week.
And then in the background we see a portly, evil Aaron Banks organising a campaign to deselect twelve Conservative MPs (HERE) who had the temerity to think for themselves and voted against the government recently in a bid to keep us in the customs union.
If an agreement is finally reached that satisfies all the factions, the form of words used will be a wonder to behold, in a way that Lewis Carroll would be proud of, and they will mean exactly what each reader wants them to mean.
Yet somehow I do not think the EU will accept a fudge. They have us precisely where they want us. If they cannot get legal clarity now they never will. The clock ticking is ever louder and beads of sweat are beginning to appear on the forehead as the tension mounts, eyes swivel and several discordant violins play notes unseen. Only the EU have the combination to switch the timer off. All they need to do is wait and sooner or later we'll be ready to sell.
The Telegraph are reporting (HERE) that the EU have offered to extend the transition period which the newspaper claims will add £17 billion to the divorce bill. I'm not sure if this is a serious offer or simply as mischief to persuade furious Brexiteers about the political cost of not accepting the deal that's on offer at the moment.
At the end of this unseemly session, assuming a deal on the Withdrawal Agreement is scrabbled together by December, I really don't see how Mrs May, if she is still PM, could ever present the shambles to a sceptical parliament as some sort of victory. It is a humiliation for her and for the country. What a way to decide our future - a future that 75% of our youth is firmly opposed to.
Next up will be getting the deal quickly through parliament, a task that also looks impossible at the moment. I wonder if we can get Hogarth to do that picture?
If by some miracle it is forced through, the whole ridiculous circus can then begin again next year as a new ticking time bomb is primed and set for December 31st 2020. During the 21 month transition period, if we still continue to believe we can reach a Canada like deal which permits frictionless trade and we don't spend millions on reorganising and upgrading Dover and other EU facing ports and airports we will be in exactly the same boat that we are today, with absolutely no credibility to our leave-without-a-deal threats.
But if we do commit to a lot of new port and road infrastructure it will send a clear message to all the just-in-time manufacturers that frictionless trade is not going to continue. In which case they will up sticks.
What a quandary. The government will need to tread a very fine line Indeed.
