which is exactly what the deal he's now so desperate to push through would bring about.

His deal is similar to but worse than the deal Theresa May brokered, which Johnson resigned from cabinet over then spent months trashing, rather loudly.

His words are worth nothing. The fact he can't be trusted is adding to the difficulties in finding a resolution to the situation.

He did not sign the letter and argues against the extension in his letter. They are in the OP.

UK must bear collossal economic consequences or other countries will start leaving EU. When half the country finds itself in poverty, they’ll vote to rejoin EU in no time.

the UK comes in 2nd in EU GDP behind Germany and as a unified bloc, the EU has more negotiating power and leverage with other trade blocs like the rapidly-forming Asian/Pacific trade bloc and the western hemisphere countries and our bloc (that is unfortunately disintegrating before our eyes ).

It's complicated but makes sense if you're paying attention.

Other EU countries would suffer a bit, the UK a lot, and Ireland just as much as the UK, if not even more. A hell of a lot of Irish goods go in and out through the UK, including those going to/from the continent. And the Republic doesn't want a hard border with the Real IRA attacking it.

It's Johnson's little whine about having to send the letter mandated by the Benn Act, purely for his fans and the over-excitable Sunday papers.

They in fact sent three: (1) a covering letter, (2) the letter you've posted above, and (3) the actual extension request. Johnson didn't sign the extension request, but legally that means nothing, and Tusk has accepted receipt of the request, says he's now acting on it, and has seemingly ignored the other one.

Here's the covering letter:



Here's the extension request:



The wording of the request is precisely as stipulated by the Benn Act.

I had seen mention that something like "3 letters" were apparently sent by Johnson.

It's rare to see a two-page tantrum on government notepaper. In a 280-character tweet, maybe ...

it's all of the Low variety

and how the headline in the OP plays into Johnson et al.'s hands.

It has some relevance to the situation with Trump in the USA, too.

(Note to moderators: it's a Thread Reader transcript of a Twitter thread, so I don't believe it's subject to the usual four-paragraph limit on quotes.)

to me means this has been nothing more than some kind of "face-saving" gesture ("never admit defeat" ). Compared to the "master" of distortion, obfuscation, and distraction here in the U.S., Johnson's antics are pretty tame. What Parliament does (and notably those in his party and/or in coalition) will be critical regarding how far he can go and where he will go.

(1) It's been confirmed by the EU that Johnson's attempt at distraction by not adding a handwritten signature to the request letter is just that - the extension request is valid without it:

Link to tweet

Looks like it will be one of these -

These developments didn't seem to be significant enough for a new OP, so this felt like a good place to post them (what's posted in the threads above should be enough to bring people up to speed if they haven't been following all this in detail).

So now the fuzzy exit needs some details with legislative meat -