Look carefully at the wording of this tweet. “I” - David Frost - will not be changing my mandate.

I understand this is deliberate - there are some in gvt who want to push Boris to accept a deal that doesn’t observe previous red lines. https://twitter.com/davidghfrost/status/1327924802103947265

Some believe there is a push from other parts of government - Treasury? Cabinet Office? - to do a deal based on a slightly softer brexit than the one David Frost was sent to negotiate

Some worry most about negative consequences of no deal? Some see a push to soften UK position

Others say it’s HMT being backed up by Business Secretary Alok Sharma and Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden putting pressure for a deal

Remember the deal with Michel Barnier is being negotiated by David Frost, who considered resigning over Lee Cain this week, and his deputy Oliver Lewis who also nearly resigned out of loyalty to the Vote Leave crew

The internal politics of this is very complicated

And a bit of this was around on Thursday night

Tho “remainers” I think meant simply pro-deal ppl in gvt

And clearly “extension” is wrong. Think shorthand for something softer than Frost wants https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1327001388719726592

The brexit deal, as it stands, will mean quite lot of pain from January 1

But there are strong voices in gvt who believe it’s better than no deal.

As an aside the failure of gvt to be open about the changes involved spelt out well here by @RobDotHutton https://thecritic.co.uk/dominic-cummingss-2020-vision/

I was told by someone in a position to know last week that no deal would really cause problems in Northern Ireland.

Which we knew, but interesting it’s acknowledged privately (but not publicly) at the heart of government