Friday Brexit

Today, May will make a speech in Grimsby in which she will call on the EU to make changes to the backstop to enable the WA to pass through The Commons and so be ratified.

This is despite the backstop having been changed from an NO only safety net to a UK wide one, at the request of the UK so to avoid a customs border in the Irish Sea.

This was a major concession by the EU, and was a major coup for May, in what was the only time the EU backtracked on what it has said to accommodate UK's requests.

Two Brexit Secretaries negotiated the WA, Cabinet and The Commons rubber-stamped it last year, and now all seem want to kill it, despite it being the only "deal" on the table, and the EU saying repeatedly, for months, that the WA will not be reopened.

The speech today is for domestic consumption, for the ERG and the right-leaning papers of Fleet Street, but in a typical mistake of May and Brexiteers, they seem to forget the EU has the internet and the BBC News Channel is available almost everywhere.

This is a common case of the UK saying one thing in negotiations, then saying the opposite outside.

This two-faced action means that the EU will be even more determined to have the backstop legally binding, as they do not trust May, and those who might replace her even less.

And who can blame them.

Trade negotiations and diplomacy are based on good faith, and the UK has shown very little of that these last two years, so are now reaping that bitter harvest.

Brexit happens three weeks today, and time for alternate courses have almost run out. Deal or no deal.