The dead Brexit Sketch

You know how this goes.

It has ceased to be, it is no more.

But like a zombie parrot, it keeps coming back for more.

A lot of what I am about to write, I have written before. Many times. These things have not changed, nor will they.

In negotiations, you listen to the other side, understand their red lines, the no go areas, respect them, and avoid them.

The UK, in Brexit, is like the typical Brit abroad, when they can't be understood, say again, s l o w ly and LOUDER. This is May's Brexit negotiations.

From the start the EU said, the four freedoms are non-negotiable, on them the Single Market and the EU is built. But time after time after time, the UK has tried to split off the freedom of goods from the other three. And each time, the EU rejects this as cakeism or cherry picking.

Despite being told the Chequers paper would not be accepted, certainly not as it is, May ploughed on regardless.

If not respecting the other side's red lines wasn't bad enough, she then tried to circumvent M. Barnier by going to the capital cities of member states to appeal direct, but ignoring the fact Barnier is negotiating with a mandate from the EU 27 and EU council. Whatever he says or decides has the backing of the EU, if he is unsure, he asks them.

I have mentioned "good faith" many times, the EU has acted in good faith all through the A50 process, never wavering, never giving an inch, as it is the EU that holds the trump cards and gets to decide what to offer, rather than as the Brexiteers claimed two years ago that the UK held all the aces and we would get what we want as the EU needs us more than we need them.

How did that pan out?

And the fact that German car makers and Italian Prosecco makers would value a deal with the UK over the Single Market, something both denied time and time again.

The PM spoke this afternoon of a lack of respect from the EU's side. Really? They have acted sensibly and in their own interest, and have allowed talks to progress when they could have refused. The spoke last December of May being a tough negotiator to make her climbdown seem better than it was.

In fact that was the moment May lost control totally. She and her ministers agreed the December "sufficient progress" without understanding what she had agreed to. Those of us who understood knew, we though hard Brexit dies then, and we quietly celebrated.

This week, May has said repeatedly that no UK Prime Minister could agree to the Irish Border backstop. But she did. Twice.

Only when it was pointed out to her by the EU's text of the agreement did she get full realisation. So, when she ways there is a lack of respect, can she look at herself in the mirror?

Maybe she believes the bollocks she spouts, maybe she feels she has to, to keep her party together for a few weeks longer, but its not going to last.

When it is the UK that is leaving the EU, not the other way round, it is up to the UK to find solutions, no to identify issues, risks, and come up with solutions before they arise. Not trigger A50 and then try to get agreement from within her cabinet and party on the hoof.

She may sound strong and threatening, but she has no real power. No power over her own cabinet, let alone Parliament, and certainly no power via threats over the EU. She may say the UK is prepared to walk away without a deal, but that is as hollow as that scene in Blazing Saddles, watch the UK threaten to blow its own brains out.

We may be just dumb enough to do it.

The question is whether May blinks first again. She has no real choice, as the EU is fed up, fed up trying to deal with a country and a political system falling apart. In the end they realised that whatever the WA and TA might have, May could probably not get it through Parliament for ratification. So, better bring the political crisis forward so it can happen and blow over, whilst seeing what comes out the other side.

Today, the Good Law Project won a case at the Court of Session in Scotland, who referred the question of whether Parliament can or cannot stop Brexit to the UCJ. Further it said that Parliament can instruct the Government to withdraw A50. The Government is to appeal. There should be an answer to this before Christmas. Cases like this have won powers for Parliament before, which MPs have chosen not to use. Maybe this will be the same. Maybe not.

As May spoke outside Number 10 this afternoon, the pound slumped by 2%. Couldn't someone shut her up?

Back in June 2016, Donald Tusk said Brexit would end up with Hard or no Brexit. He was right. But what will it be?