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Theresa May said she wanted to unite the country, and by all accounts people as far apart as Hilary Benn, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Michel Barnier all left the select committee meeting today in full agreement that her Chequers plan is absolutely terrible. Mission accomplished.

I'm as critical as anyone of Labour's incompetent Brexit policy, but I think these six tests are pretty sensible. If the Government promised a situation that had the "exact same benefits" (quote: D. Davis), then it makes good political sense to make that the benchmark by which to judge their success or failure. Obviously these tests means that it's going to be a failure, but it always was going to be a failure regardless. This gives everyone a peg on which to hang their criticism.

Because there seems to be little else to do now but laugh at idiots as RMS United Kingdom sinks to the icy depths, the replies here to Julia Hartley-Brewer I thought were very good.

Ahem...May 10th? A fair bit has happened since then ? (actually it hasn't, but there have at least been lots of other half-witted articles since then by people who, like M. Hannan should be making a living holding up Stop / Go signs)

In my experience it's quite rare to find that few people in an open space on a warm Saturday in central London at any time. So that's mighty impressive work in one sense by this bunch of daft bell-ends.

Depressingly not. They raised £60,000, they didn't spend £60,000. The rest is going to a Facebook campaign called Make London Safe Again. And it would appear the thing that is going to Make London Safe Again, is asking people to buy their t-shirts for a tenner a pop with anti-Sadiq Khan slogans on them.

I'm sure it's definitely got nothing to do with his vote of no-confidence and imminent deselection by his CLP.

That's what was agreed in December, since then though the Government has (a) said that they didn't really mean it, and more importantly, (b) Parliament has voted through Amendment NC37 to the trade bill, which will make it unlawful for Northern Ireland to be in a separate customs territory to the rest of the UK. So when the trade bill gets Royal Assent, the proposed backstop would be illegal.

...if the withdrawal agreement is settled. There is nothing to bring to parliament for them to vote on until the Commission and the Government are agreed on the outstanding points on Ireland. Just as it has been for 18 months. So to get there, one of those five options i referred to has to happen.

"Blocked" how? MPs' power is in voting on proposed legislation. If they aren't given something to vote on, they have about as much power to stop it as you or me. For Parliament to have something to vote on, the withdrawal agreement needs to satisfy both parties. To get to that stage, at least one of the following needs to happen to solve their requirements for Ireland: 1) Ireland decides that it's happy for a customs and standards border across the island after all 2) the UK decides it's happy for a customs and standards border between GB and NI after all 3) the UK decides it's happy to sign up to the rules of the Single Market, the Customs Union and the common commercial policy in perpetuity. 4) The EU27 decide they are happy to give the UK full access to the Single Market while not being subject to the rules in (3) 5) Ireland decides it wants to leave the EU as well. Unless I've missed one, one of those things has to be agreed by the Government and the Commission before MPs get the chance to say whether they like it or not. And none of them seem particularly likely. On an extension, they'll definitely agree it in some circumstances. An imminent election or referendum, or to allow tweaking or ratification of something broadly agreed then sure - but an extension just to keep arguing the same old points a bit more? Not a chance. They want this sorted, one way or the other.

That's one interpretation. A more cynical view is that this is just jostling for position, ready for when the blame is dished out. There is still no solution that has majority backing in Parliament (apart from possibly EEA membership, but even that will trigger a leadership challenge), and the other 27 countries plus the Commission have said from the start, and still say that the Single Market is indivisible. So which one breaks? It's fleshed out nicely in Richard North's blog from yesterday. http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86977 The quick version: the only way that May can keep on the current crashing-out trajectory and keep the Tory party together and electable is to be as positive as possible now, so that when things collapse "at the last minute" she can say that it's all someone else's fault, and hope to carry enough people along with that narrative.

Nothing has changed. Barnier has said that the UK will get the deepest, most comprehensive arrangement that the UK's self-imposed red lines will allow. Which is what they've said from the very beginning.

Demonstrating once again her complete rejection of freedom of movement.

Although he /they have said that all along, and still say it now.

Not quite "in jail". http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-43864133 "A man who filmed a pet dog giving Nazi salutes before putting the footage on YouTube has been fined £800. Mark Meechan, 30, recorded his girlfriend's pug, Buddha, responding to statements such as "Sieg Heil" by raising its paw. The clip was viewed more than three million times on YouTube. Meechan, of Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, was sentenced at Airdrie Sheriff Court after being found guilty of committing a hate crime last month. He had denied any wrong-doing and insisted he made the video, which was posted in April 2016, to annoy his girlfriend. But Sheriff Derek O'Carroll found him guilty of a charge under the Communications Act that he posted a video on social media and YouTube which was grossly offensive because it was "anti-Semitic and racist in nature" and was aggravated by religious prejudice" The gentleman in question is a proper bellend, irrespective of any free speech questions this particular incident might throw up.

There's an excellent podcast series that the BBC are running at the moment called "Brexit: A Love Story?" which is well worth a listen. Goes from the 60s onwards, with around half an hour of interviews from all sides of the argument for the various main events over the decades. It's not finished yet, but they're ten episodes in, and up to the Eastern expansion. It's very enlightening.

Cool. All good. 2016 wants it's polemicism back. More people liked your argument than ours. Congratulations. You now get to move on to what happens next. If you're going to suggest that other people should be bearing in mind what the EU looks like in twenty years time, you'll presumably be happy to tell us what the UK looks like in say, twenty months time? For all the whining about people wanting to re-fight the referendum, it seem that nobody wants to do that more than those who can't articulate what they want to do with the prize that they have won.

Nicked from David Allan Green: "...the papers include several examples of esoteric changes that would be necessary in a no-deal situation. For example, the UK would need to introduce its own cigarette packet warnings because Brussels owns the copyright to those used at present" So it's literally being done on the back of a fag packet.

"Leaving the EU means we get to cut down on all that needless EU bureaucracy!" (Although as per our technical notices, you might want to hire a customs broker, a freight forwarder or a logistics provider to deal with all the extra bureaucracy that this is going to cause)

First batch of notices on what the Government think will happen if there is no withdrawal agreement due at 11am. Leaks suggest that the gist is going to be along the lines of "pretend we're still an EU member and pray as hard as we can that the other 27 countries choose to do the same".

And then? Or will it just be the same people, with the same policies? "What's that? You don't like the Liberal Democrats because they broke their promise on tuition fees? Well, how about our brand new, completely different, led by Vince Cable, Democratic Liberal Party. Look, we've changed our logo slightly and everything"

In terms of policy, are they likely to be any different from the Liberal Democrats? As from the noises that have been made so far, the main difference seems to be solely that they won't be called the Liberal Democrats.

Bicks and Chris have pretty much covered it. It's a bit like in the summer when the club was facing potential bankruptcy, everything else depended on the outcome of that. Yes, we needed a new goalkeeper. But there was little point discussing the merits of those available until we knew whether the club still existed.

Right now, it pretty much does. There is nothing happening in UK politics at the moment that shouldn't be viewed through that prism.

They recognise those of every country with whom they have a treaty acknowledging the fact. Plenty of them will also require purchase of an International Driving Permit. So as long as we come to a satisfactory arrangement and sign a new treaty that is agreed by all parties, then probably very little will change from where we are now. I can't imagine either side wants to get into a tit for tat about people driving around. However if we don't do that, what definitely doesn't happen is that "everything just carries on as normal because it always did before". If you really want to get into the weeds of it, you'll want Commission Decision (EU) 2016/1945 of 14 October 2016, on "equivalences between categories of driving licences". Be warned though, it's tens of thousands of words long. But afterwards you'll be an absolute authority on the subject that you're asking about...