Brexit: Deal or No Deal?

I wrote the following on 19th September and it seems fairly on the money, given the extraordinary political goings-on of the last few days.

And, speaking of change, we are limping up to the finish line in the botched job that is Britain's exit from membership of the EU. Will there be a last minute deal that satisfies all parties? Or will the die-hards sabotage whatever emerges from the late-night negotiations on the grounds that any deal approved by the EU must, de facto, be detrimental to the UK? I have a horrible feeling that this may the case.

After weeks of "Yes, we will have a deal" and "No, nothing has been finalised", a detailed document has at last been published by the Government and presented to the nation, as well as to the 27 countries comprising the rest of EU, for approval. Almost before the ink was dry, the coffee rings on page 14 had been smudged and the words "Oh bugger" inscribed on page 92, pages 145-167, the whole of Part II and most of the Appendix, then the arch-Brexiteers were ready with Cabinet resignations, letters of no confidence in Mrs. May and ringing declarations that the deal was the worst possible outcome and they could have done a much better job. The little inconvenience of the fact that B. Johnson and D. Davis and others were senior Cabinet ministers for much of the time that the negotiations have been supposed to be going on seems to have been passed over. Perhaps they were doing nothing at all but writing endless drafts of letters of no confidence and the like, ready for the big moment when they could express their shock and horror at whatever deal was reached.

I suppose, to be fair, the unease in the Labour party and the outright disapproval of the SNP mean that there is much in the deal to have shock and horror about. I haven't bothered to read it on the grounds that it may be binned within a few days.

I doubt if Britain has been as poorly treated by its political leaders for a very long time. We have a polarisation of positions that is unbridgeable. From those who, as hinted in my earlier piece, will reject anything that the EU accepts on principle to those who will nitpick about everything, to those who are attempting to cobble something, anything, together to avoid the nightmare of a no-deal, to those who wish we had never got ourselves into the ludicrous state, there is no common ground.