Brexit: the current situation

Last night's vote gave Mrs May a smidgen of authority to go back to the EU and ask for changes to the withdrawal agreement. With the right changes, the deal might - perhaps, with a following wind - pass through parliament. Even that is far from assured, given the small margin of 'victory' in the vote.

There are many problems. The first and foremost is that the EU has said it will not renegotiate. Even if it did, there is no indication that they would agree to whatever quasi-magical alterations to the backstop people have in mind. And there is nothing stopping other countries - for instance Spain - from wanting to reopen other aspects of the agreement to their advantage.

And all of this has to be done in a few weeks.

It really is an almighty mess.

Another problem is that we have MPs saying what they are *against*, and not what they are *for*. There are also far too many of them who seem to think that negotiation is a case of demanding, and then stamping your feet like stroppy children until the party you are negotiating with relents.

I fear this is not going to end well for us. And it is all our own fault.