> I mean, why would Theresa May not try and get a good deal May has two contradictory goals. She doesn't want to really leave the EU - I think absolutely every

> I mean, why would Theresa May not try and get a good deal May has two contradictory goals. She doesn't want to really leave the EU - I think absolutely everything about her staff picks, negotiating non-strategy and Cabinet management supports that - but she's a genuine Tory loyalist who needs to maintain enough of a fig-leaf of Leaving that her party doesn't get utterly obliterated by irate voters at the next election. That's a tough needle to thread, and she's completely failed to thread it. She's achieved her first goal by abandoning her second. > as if they want to leave without weighing up the pros and cons of both sides - their staunchness confuses me I don't think "staunchness" is quite the word. They want to leave, and they don't see the WA as leaving. (Nor does the general population; I think the last poll showed only 12% thought the WA respected the referendum result.) The talking point being pushed hard by No 10 has been "don't make the perfect the enemy of the good", implying that the ERG etc are blocking the WA because they think, unrealistically, that they can get a harder exit by holding out. That may be true for some. But I think many genuinely do believe that the WA (effectively non-voting membership with no safeguards and no way out) is worse than staying in the EU (as a voting member with the option of going Article 50 again). Many have said so. Some observers may dismiss that as rhetorical, but I don't think it is.