Up yours, Boris!

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The deal reached on Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union is the “best possible” and is not up for negotiation but the European Commission is ready to talk with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a spokeswoman for the bloc’s executive said on Monday.

That's Brussels-speak for "Up yours, Boris!". They are not reopening the talks. Not now, and no time in the future. That's the one thing in all this they can be certain of. There's no incentive to. The ERG have already piped up to say that they won't back the deal even without the backstop and there's no reason to believe remain MPs will back the deal either. And to cave into political pressure from the UK would be a boost for Boris Johnson. Satan will be ice skating to work before they ever do that.

This now sets the stage for the final showdown which is is more likely to be a Westminster affair as MPs scrabble to do whatever they can to avoid a no deal Brexit. They could perhaps attempt to bring down the government but the chances of them coming together in a timely and coherent way are somewhere around nil. If they were remotely serious then they should have acted more than a year ago.

This then brings us to talk of a looming general election timed to ensure we leave on schedule. I'll spare you the speculation. I'm as bored of this as you are.