What the commentators said

“Tick, tick, tick goes the clock,” said Patrick Kidd in The Times. “Kick, kick, kick goes the PM”, endlessly putting off the moment of truth. The new target for a deal to be agreed is 27 February, said Benjamin Kentish in The Independent, but who knows? An EU summit scheduled for 21-22 March – just a week before Brexit day – “could give May justification for further delays, if she argues that this is when the EU will finally offer new concessions”. The only way Labour can counter these delaying tactics is by seizing control of the process and committing itself to a second referendum, said Zoe Williams in The Guardian. A draft of Corbyn’s letter to May last week included such a pledge, but it was subsequently left out.

I’m still “moderately optimistic” about a deal, said Wolfgang Münchau in the FT. Following the German media closely as I do, I’ve noticed a distinct change in tone recently. For the past two-and-a-half years, their focus has been on the second referendum campaign, but “there is suddenly a lot of ‘Oh my God, this is really happening’ commentary”. Brussels isn’t going to offer any concessions yet, but the history of EU negotiations suggests it will at the last minute. I wish I shared that confidence, said Robert Peston in The Spectator. The row over the backstop has distracted attention from the key obstacle to a Brexit deal, which is that “there is no consensus in Parliament on what the UK’S future long-term relationship with the EU should be”. It’s going to take a long time for our MPS to work this out – almost certainly longer than the EU will be prepared to wait. That leaves a no-deal Brexit as “the most likely outcome”.

The irony, said Juliet Samuel in The Daily Telegraph, is that the backstop delivers many of the things that Brexiters once lobbied for. These include an end to EU budget payments, full control over immigration and the service industries that make up 80% of our economy, control over farming and fisheries, and an end to the jurisdiction of EU courts. Had Brexiters been offered this deal a few years ago, when they used to talk about keeping many of the economic elements of the EU but dumping the political bits, they would have been delighted.