According to Sky News the PM is now planning to attend an EU-Arab summit in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt, this weekend. She wasn't planning to go before she learned that 20 EU leaders were attending, including Angela Merkel (HERE). I bet when the twenty hear that Theresa May is coming they will find they have a sudden illness or other more urgent appointments.
For her I suppose it's like learning your rich relatives are throwing a party and you realise if you can gatecrash it you might be able to cadge something, a few scraps to keep you going for another few days, without having to resort to all that distasteful begging letter stuff.
As far as I can see, every time she has bilateral meetings with other EU leaders two things happen. Firstly, they ask what she wants or, as things are at the moment, what she can get through parliament, and she is unable to tell them. Secondly, they tell her all negotiations are carried out by Michel Barnier. It is all just treading water, with the PM wavering between being scared and not daring to make a decisive move and risking failure.
She was regarded as being in a weak position before three of her MPs resigned yesterday morning, now she is even weaker and therefore even less likely to win any concessions on the backstop, well any meaningful ones anyway.
And after her meeting with Juncker in Brussels in the evening we get the usual mixed messages. Reuters report (HERE) May telling the assembled hacks that 'progress had been made' - well Hallelujah! - only 36 days to go out of 730 and we are making 'progress'.
"I've underlined the need for us to see legally binding changes to the backstop that ensure that it cannot be indefinite. That's what is required," May told international broadcasters after meeting European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels.
One can only despair. We knew the backstop was the big issue two months ago and she has just got round to 'underlining' what the problem is let alone solving it.
May said that negotiations with the EU would continue "at pace" and told reporters "Time is of the essence, and it's in both out interests that when the UK leaves the EU, that it does so in an orderly way".
I am sure they must have all been shocked. I mean who knew 'time was of the essence' in the Brexit negotiations? Has she just learned about the two year Article 50 time frame? The prime minister is simply out of semi-intelligent things to say and is forced to rely either on ridiculous platitudes or on stating and restating the obvious, ad nauseaum.
Mrs May has never missed an opportunity to drag her feet, clad in those famously expensive leopard print shoes she favours, in every conceivable way. Nobody runs clocks down quite like her and yet she shamelessly calls for urgency at the last minute. I think this must have caused hollow laughter that you could hear in Antwerp.
The Guardian (HERE) say:
"Privately, officials are in no joking mood, with frustration over Brexit “groundhog day” running high. One senior EU diplomat said May was to blame for failing to confront Tory hardline Eurosceptics. 'She gave the impression that you can stay in your delusional comfort zone, but you can’t,' the diplomat said. 'Unless she is ready to choose there is nothing we can do.'
"The government has backed away from hopes of re-writing the Brexit withdrawal treaty, May hopes for stronger guarantees that the backstop would never come into force. Barclay and the Attorney-General Geoffrey Cox, are due in Brussels on Thursday for further talks. Cox is seen as a pivotal figure in Brussels, as officials think any change in his legal advice could persuade Tory MPs to back the deal
"The two sides are working on a legal document that would firm up existing guarantees that the backstop would never be used".
"Sterling rose, after Spain’s foreign minister Josep Borrell said progress was being made on a text. 'The EU’s position is that the treaty won’t be reopened, but can be interpreted, or complemented with explanations that may be satisfactory,' he told Bloomberg.
"EU diplomats in Brussels sounded a more sceptical note. Many doubt that that a legal text that does not alter the backstop could win over Tory Eurosceptics. One said it 'didn’t seem realistic' such a text would change anything in the UK parliament. 'This fudge language, which is part of the British political tradition, doesn’t really work with EU law,' the diplomat said.
Katya Adler, the BBC's Europe correspondent sums it up nicely (HERE) about Great UK expectations meet EU reality, saying:
"Last week, a group of Dutch politicians came back from the UK lamenting what they described as the 'lack of knowledge' and 'lack of interest' amongst many in Westminster about how the EU works.
"The lack-of-knowledge part is also being said in Brussels of the UK's Attorney General Geoffrey Cox, on whom so much Downing Street hope is now riding in order to try to get a deal though Parliament. While the House of Commons has swirled in increasing turmoil over the last few weeks, little at all has changed in EU-UK talks".
Lack of interest and knowledge - even by our own Attorney General, the highest government legal officer - isn't that the painful truth? In 45 years the Tories have never bothered to understand the EU.
She also says Brussels only blinks when it's in their interests and giving up the backstop isn't. May will blink first - assuming she still has a party to lead that is.
