These are dangerous days for Theresa May

I am very sorry to do this to you, but it turns out that the incendiary extension to the UK’s period as a non-voting member of the EU – the mooted extra months in “transition” – isn’t really an extension. It is an “option” on an extension, the right to have an extension. Yes you guessed it: what we are talking about is another flipping backstop. And yes I too am losing the will to live as these Brexit talks descend from giant geopolitics to nightmarish logical puzzles.

Here is the background. The EU cannot – it insists – agree our preferred version of the Northern Ireland backstop as part of the Article 50 Withdrawal Agreement. And the reason for this, I am told, is that the scope of Article 50 allows only for a Northern Ireland specific backstop, not May’s preferred UK-wide one. And yes, I am puzzled as you about why this should be.