It is not their job to oppose the withdrawal agreement for the sake of it

Their stance on this has been from the outset that they would reject whatever deal May got and they have been very open about why - to force a general election. they oppose the withdrawal agreement on the basis that it leaves us potentially stuck in the customs union under the backstop arrangements whilst promoting their proposed solution of a permanent customs union!

I agree though that it has been a screw up from start to finish. The two biggest errors being (1) serving article 50 before we have bottomed out a lot of this detail and (2) agreeing to compartmentalise the process into the withdrawal agreement, transition and the future relationship agreement. That was a massive, massive error and had they not done it then the "backstop" issue would not have arisen because it was hugely obvious that you cannot sort the permanent solution to the northern ireland border situation without knowing what the future relationship will be.

Posted By: Jim, Jan 16, 11:55:37