Irony overload. Again.

Over the last few days, the ERG has morphed into the Covid Research Group, though now headed by Steve Baker, as previous chairman and ex-Mnister Mark Francois, has not been seen or heard of since an ex-Minister was accused of serious sexual offences. I'm sure its not related, Francois still votes, by proxy, in the Commons though has not been seen or had the whip withdrawn, neither has the ex-Minister who was charged.

Anyway, Steve Baker is against the new three tiers of lockdowns, a month to go before the possibly no deal Brexit his group is pushing which will have disasterous consequences for the economy of which the Government has never officially published ecionomic impact assessments for, so Baker is demanding economic impact assessments for the three tiers.

In short, we cannot afford any economic damage in fighting COVID, but any amount of econoic damage is IK for his version of Brexit?

I believe that is right.

And on top of that, Baker has announced that the ERG will not support any negotiated Brexit deal with the EU. After pushing the Government, Conservative Party to ever more extreme right-wing positions on Brexit, now even that is not enough, and sure as bears deficate in mainly wooded areas, the ERG and Nigel will scream of betrayal of any outcome, even no deal.

So, it seems that the PM would struggle to get any deal ratified by Parliament, or won't be able to do with it without Labour and the LibDems siding with the Government. That would probably break the Tories as a party, though it really will break anyway, but again, I have been saying this for years. And would force Kier Starmer into taking a position on Brexit, meaning sharing the blame when it all goes wrong. He has said thus far he would support a deal, but if the deal is thin and bad, would he then, if he knew it would be a disaster?

The mantra that any deal is better than no deal only holds true to a point, and even with a deal the border on the UK side is not ready. And might not be ready for at least a year, and that would be if all the IT systems, and peple learn how to use them, and it dovetails into the EU's systems perfectly first time.

Meanwhile, Barnier has ended is quarantine, and is on his way to London for more talks, even as the month of November draws to an end. Even with agreement, this would need to be ratified, by at least the EU (Commission or Council, possibly by the EU27 Parliaments and maybe some regional ones too) and Westminster, though on the UK side, the gOvernment could use emergency powers to bypass Parliament, which I'm sure will go down well with the ERG.

It would have been possible at one time to leave grey areas and rely on "Gentlmen's agreements" to sort out later, but the total loss of trust by the EU means this cannot happen, there will have to be clear legal processes in place to ensure UK compliance, that would mean binning the IMB for a start. THree issues might remain, but a long way to go.

And very little time.