Olly Robbins has ended up in a significant amount of hot water after a sensational scoop from ITV’s Angus Walker in Brussels, who overheard Theresa May’s chief negotiator talking loudly to two colleagues in a Brussels hotel bar on Monday night. His remarks more or less confirmed all of Brexiteers’ worst fears that the wool is being pulled very firmly over their eyes…

Robbins’ revealed his plan to force the deal through by letting it go down to the wire and using the threat of a “long” extension to bully MPs into voting for the deal, saying “… Got to make them believe that the week beginning end of March… Extension is possible but if they don’t vote for the deal then the extension is a long one…” The Government’s long-held position has been firmly against any extension of Article 50. Now Robbins wants to weaponise that possibility to blackmail MPs. Forget the EU, it is clearer than ever that the UK’s own chief negotiator is not negotiating in good faith…

Robbins also boasted about the true nature of the backstop, revealing that it was not intended to be a “safety net” as it has been sold publicly but actually a “bridge” to the future relationship – exactly as his opposite number Sabine Weyand told EU ambassadors the day after the deal was agreed. Robbins told his companions: “The big clash all along is the ‘safety net’… We agreed a bridge but it came out as a ‘safety net’.” This blows another massive hole in May’s key commitments – this time on leaving the customs union. Robbins is answerable directly to the Prime Minister. How can she continue to stand up at the Despatch Box telling MPs one thing while allowing her chief negotiator to run round Brussels saying the complete opposite?

Theresa May has often insisted that Brexiteers should simply swallow the backstop, unpalatable as it is, because there is little chance of it ever being used. This argument has taken a hammer-blow overnight with multiple reports from Brussels that Sabine Weyand, Barnier’s deputy who leads the EU’s negotiations at a technical level, has been telling EU ambassadors that the EU plans to use the backstop as the basis for the future relationship with the UK locked into the customs union and “level playing field” arrangements on social and environmental policy. Confirming all of Brexiteers’ warnings about the UK becoming a permanent vassal state…

According to The Times, Weyand told EU ambassadors:

“We should be in the best negotiation position for the future relationship. This requires the customs union as the basis of the future relationship… They must align their rules but the EU will retain all the controls. They apply the same rules. UK wants a lot more from future relationship, so EU retains its leverage.”

Weyand also said that the UK would be forced to concede on fisheries, one of the last remaining red lines May is attempting to cling to, saying that the UK “would have to swallow a link between access to products and fisheries in future agreements”. The gaping hole at the heart of the Government’s Brexit strategy is that it has not made any preparations to leave the customs union or single market in any meaningful sense. The EU knows this and is exploiting it mercilessly.

Ironically, the one thing it does do is bring the Government’s position almost entirely into line with Labour’s, the only difference being that the Government is still claiming that the customs union and level playing field arrangements will be temporary, while Labour – and evidently the EU – want them to be permanent. May has zero chance of getting the deal through Parliament on Tory and DUP votes alone, with the DUP further hardening their opposition to the deal overnight, however the Labour frontbench is still continuing to dangle the possibility of a shock decision to back the deal. This might be May’s only hoping of getting the deal through Parliament but it would surely signal the death knell of her leadership…