Bloody hell MITO that's even more complicated than I thought!
One thing I don't buy is the idea that if there was a majority for Customs Union, it would somehow send a majority to May's Deal. There's never been anywhere close to a majority for May's deal. So if somehow another 8 votes are agreed behind the scenes for a Customs Union, then the majority of MPs genuinely favour a Customs Union. If they've voted for it, why would they feel threatened by it? It'll be about 290 MPs, the numbers just don't stack up for May's Deal.
The best thing about this is we could keep May's Deal and the EU would happily add UK wide Customs Union to it. Where May could be a right **** is if she says, oh I'll add it to the Political Declaration as that's not legally binding and I think that will cause another uproar in the HoC because people wouldn't trust her OR an incoming hardline brexiteer PM to see it through.
As of today we are faced with crisis.
theres no path forward.
Or i should say politically everyone has painted themselves into a corner and nobody will climb down and lose face but the country faces a crash out if they dont.
so:
the withdrawal agreement does what?
a) exists EU
b) pays EU money for projects
c) maintains regulations and in effect UK as a whole is locked to EU until future is agreed (and the dup claim this only affect NI which is bull)
So the current withdrawal agreement is a holding station. A zombie state waiting for a future relationship to be agreed. That could be anything BUT the point is the back stop means you cannot be very far off the customs union to work the back stop.
And thus we reach the true issue. The back stop isn't giving some people what they want which is a hard border with ireland (dup) and the end of eu regulations (ERG)
The only game in town today is May's deal we've known it as far back as july or whenever david davies ran away and refused to accept reality. We've known it since november, december, january and we knew it on the day of the second vote.
Voting no to no deal (labour) but then voting against Mays deal (the only option) is bascially illogical.
We went to EU and asked for extension and were grated two options. one to please sort your heads out but go and let us have eelctions deal or the second being accept uk withdrawal treaty/deal and **** off.
IF we accept eu elections and have those then brexit is off for 2 years and we start day 1.
The fear then is the rising tide of condemnation demands a general election.
So the ERG IMO has left this one vote too late to suck it up. They are now having to roll the dice... if they even can...
Accept mays deal but dup might vote it down OR risk no brexit at all cos a new election could deliver god knows what result
