TM mentioned the "deal" with almost every answer yesterday in the Commons. Most are talking about her deal.

But this isn't a deal, it is a two part arrangement.

1. The Withdrawal Agreement sets out in an international treaty how we will hand over a shed load of money which hasn't been set out for us to scrutinise the breakdown. It will move us on 29th March in to what I would call a holding area where we will still be under the EU umbrella but without a say.
Most of what is held in this legal text is costing the UK, or uncomfortable and inconvenient for the UK.

2. The Future Arrangement, set out in a letter of intent. This is really the part where we want meat on the bone.

The ground we give in the Withdrawal Agreement is counter-balanced by the Future arrangement.

But 2 is largely worthless. It will have been put together by a UK PM that might not be around in a few weeks (with a little luck) and an EU that will look at lot different after the Spring with new Commissioners and a new Parliament.
and it has no legal standing.

and if we cannot agree a future arrangement in the period after 29th March we will be held in that holding arrangement indefinitely. Some have suggested that we will be able to break out eventually, but that really is well in to the next decade and will be a time consuming process, mired in legal challenges.

This should be handled like an exchange of contracts in a house purchase. If we accept that the EU cannot sign a deal with a member and has to wait until we are a 3rd country, then at the very least we should have a signature ready Future Arrangement, ready to sign on 230th March with both agreements held by a neutral party for a signing either side of 11:00pm on the 29th.

That seems unlikely to happen, as the EU repeatedly has insisted it would breach it's rules to discuss such detail with a 3rd country.

So my only conclusion now is that we should make ourselves a 3rd country on March the 29th, not sign the Withdrawal Agreement.

Then the EU can satisfy it's own bureaucratic red lines and hold twin track discussions in tandem on our responsibilities for leaving alongside the discussions on our future relationship.