What do you think?

Were Theresa May’s talks with Jeremy Corbyn a sham, intended to run down the clock on the extension to Article 50 that was established after she failed to persuade Parliament to pass her dire withdrawal deal? Was it part of a plan to shift the blame for a bad Brexit onto Labour?

Was she hoping to present the nation with a fait accompli – of leaving the EU with no deal at all, because she has made it perfectly clear that she won’t cancel Brexit? That would have been the only alternative, if the EU did not grant a further extension.

But was the EU likely to refuse another extension? The bloc has previously made it clear that it did not want the UK to leave at all, but recently it seems attitudes of some countries have changed. France persuaded Belgium and Spain to support a “no deal” Brexit, we heard last week, so the expected result was by no means certain.

Was Mrs May secretly hoping that she would be forced into a delay, and the EU would support it? That’s a possibility – especially if you listen to ‘Leave’ supporters who claim that the prime minister never abandoned her loyalty to the cause of remaining in the EU.

Well, now she has to request an extension, and a motion to go before the Commons today (April 9) will set the new new Brexit date as June 30.

The EU may decide not to accept that date, preferring a longer period. Either way, it seems the UK is set to take part in the next European Parliament elections on May 23. The UK may only remain in the EU for slightly more than a month after that poll, but it cannot stay as a member state without representation (which may disappoint ‘Leave’ supporters who have been claiming that the UK doesn’t have representation in the bloc, despite all the evidence to the contrary).

Or have I missed something? If so, I wouldn’t be at all surprised, as the goalposts are now being moved on a daily – sometimes several times per day – basis.

And what’s happening in the Tory-Labour Brexit talks?

Your guess is as good as anybody’s, it seems.

“Talks have to mean a movement, and so far there has been no change in those ‘red lines’,” according to Jeremy Corbyn, talking to the BBC.

That’s the situation: Limbo. Meanwhile the real problems facing the UK – not least because of the expected effects of Brexit – are being allowed to go unaddressed.

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