It's make your mind up time

The PM has had two and a half years in which to shape and deliver Brexit.

She has failed.

Badly.

She has tried over and over again to deliver the Brexit that the Brexiteers wanted, whilst trying to keep some possibility of trade with the EU. Which is why, in the end, her negotiated WA, aka "the deal", was unacceptable to the Brexiteers as much as it was to remainers, as it took the worse of all worlds and mixed them up.

I still think a version of this will be passed by Parliament even after the crushing defeat in the House last week. This is becasue there is no other choice other than no deal or no Brexit. At the moment both alternatives are unacceptable, but the clock is ticking, and the EU will not reopen the WA to May, Corbyn or Parliament.

If the UK wants a deal, then it has to have the backstop. No amount of semantics can change as to what the backstop is and why it is there. It is needed more than ever as May has shown her Government and the political elite cannot be trusted to keep their word. That's the old phrase "good faith" coming back, the UK has not always acted in good faith, to be trusted to do as it says so there has to be legally binding WA to ensure it does.

And this is just the WA. Actual trade talks have yet to begin, and with the track record May has already on Brexit, it will be carnage. But then not as bad as trade talks with the US, who will dictate terms, and if there is no deal with the EU, then we would have to sign up to their terms.

The irony that the Brexiteers have rejected the backstop is that one of their own, DD, actually negotiated it. That is now disowns it shows just how crap and under prepared he was for the task of Minister for Brexit. Again and again he shows just how much he fails to understand still about international trade. Of course he could just be pretending to be stupid, but no one is that good an actor.

May put Brexiteers in positions to shape and deliver Brexit, and they failed. Brexiteers filled the Cabinet that agreed on the sufficient progress for the WA 13 months ago. That they now disown it shows they either did not know what they were signing up to, or did and wanted to create a bigger issue later in the A50 process.

Corbyn and Labour, meanwhile, don't want to be seen in having anything to do with a negotiated Brexit, lest they be tarnished with it after March 29. The default position in UK and international law is that Brexit will happen, and once it has, undoing it will be impossible, unless the articles of the EU are changed to allow a swift re-entry for the UK. The only way at the moment is via Article 49, a process that could take a decade, even if the EU wanted to, and the UK needs to sort its internal political issues out first, and that seems a long way away.

So, tomorrow seems May's alternative plan for the backstop which she hopes to steer through Parliament. But any such plan would be unacceptable to Ireland and the EU, so pointless, as the EU has said that it will not reopen the WA.

Liam Fox tried to say this morning that Parliament ignoring the mandate of the referendum was something that could not happen, after the people instructed Parliamant. But of course the referendum did no such thing. The legislation that allowed the referendum stated it was advisary only, and Parliamanrt cannot be bound by the result and could ignore it. Politically it would be difficult, but it was Cameron, Corbyn and May who have promised the result would be honoured, if Parliament decides otherwise, then it can.