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^The thing about the Brexit war cabinet, which meets this afternoon, is that the "war" in its nickname refers not to the challenge of leaving the EU but the dreadful state of relations between the ministers on it.
Because they are utterly divided on which of two customs plans - a so-called New Customs Partnership or Max Fac (for maximum facilitation) - the government should negotiate with Brussels.^
And to make matters even more surreal, neither of these proposals solve the Irish border problem.
Which means that the PM has got herself into the tragi-comic position of being surrounded by ministers who might flounce out of the cabinet if they are forced to adopt the customs plan they dislike - while simultaneously risking the complete collapse in June of Brexit negotiations with EU governments, because those governments have threatened to go on strike if she cannot prove there is progress in sorting the Ireland mess.
And to add national insult to her personal injury, the questions being so hotly debated by foreign secretary, Brexit secretary, trade secretary, chancellor and the rest are arrangements that are so fiendishly technical and complicated that learning about them is the political equivalent of reading the manual for your new washing machine.
So here is my heroic (thank me later) and doomed attempt to distil the small print into an issue that most of us can understand: the New Customs Partnership is supposed to be a technological and bureaucratic solution to enjoying the benefits of being in the Customs Union while simultaneously leaving it.
The basic mechanics are these.
Under the NCP, goods entering the UK from non-EU countries would be liable to the tariffs owed to the EU - but if those goods were actually destined for the UK market market, not the EU single market, then the UK customer would end up getting a rebate or paying more, depending on whether UK tariffs were actually higher or lower than EU ones.
In other words, the UK would be the EU's tariff collector, while having that ability - deemed so precious by the Brexiters - to set tariffs different from the EU's own ones
Now I have absolutely no idea whether you understand those preceding paragraphs. I am not 100% certain I do.
However the nub is this: the NCP is supposed to remove any need for tariffs to be levied on any goods passing from the UK to the EU at any of the UK's borders with the EU - so no tariffs to be levied at Dover, or between Northern Ireland and the Republic, and so on.
NCP would therefore be a boon to multinationals with global supply chains. And it would keep the Ireland border more permeable and softer than it would otherwise be.
But - and it's a huge "but" - there would be big bureaucracy for British firms, as they would subsequently have to claim tariff rebates or pay higher tariffs, depending on whether the UK had better or worse trade deals with the likes of South Korea and Canada.
And it is not clear that the system can actually be put into practice, because HMRC is a million miles from having the capability to track at the border whether goods coming in to the UK have the UK or the EU as their final destination - which would be necessary to ensure that the correct tariffs are ultimately paid.
For what it's worth, HMRC has been giving briefings over the past couple of days to Brexit committee members on the fiendish logistics of all this.
The biggest "but" of all is this: the NCP on its own does not keep the Ireland border completely open or solve the entire threat to global supply chains.
Because the reason for border checks, according to the EU's lore and law, is not tariffs, it is product standards and quality.
Or to put it another way, the underpinning of Europe's single market are its uniform business rules to ensure dodgy goods and services aren't sold anywhere within that market.
And the EU will insist on border checks, in Ireland and at Dover, if the UK does not pledge to adhere to those standards - either through remaining a member of the single market, which the PM has rejected, or through some other route which the PM thinks exists, but the rest of the EU does not.
To that extent, the NCP is a red herring.
But so too is Maximum Facilitation - though it's probably a more honest red herring.
In that Maximum Facilitation is simply a series of bureaucratic techniques to minimise border checks - such as authorising some firms as "trusted traders" which could ship goods frictionlessly back and forth over borders, and pre-notifying HMRC electronically about impending shipments.
The point about Max Fac is it recognises there will have to be some border infrastructure.
That, of course, is anathema to the Republic of Ireland and - in theory - to the rest of the EU.
One implication is that this whole row about NCP versus Max Fac is displacement activity.
Why?
Well what the PM really needs to do is stand up publicly and admit that Brexit will require border checks in Ireland, precisely because of her red lines that the UK cannot stay in both the single market and customs union.
^To pretend otherwise is absurd and will ultimately be unsustainable.
Somehow she has to persuade the EU that those border checks would be subtle and inconspicuous enough so as not be a serious repudiation of the Good Friday Agreement and would not lead to a resumption of armed conflict in Northern Ireland.^
Why won't she make that case, why won't she give that speech?
Presumably because she doesn't really believe it. Instead she simply repeats, as mantra, that the border will be kept open and the Good Friday Agreement honoured - without saying how.
In a way therefore it suits her to have the world focus on how Johnson, Gove, Fox, Williamson, Davis and Javid are all massive NCP sceptics - while NCP has her backing and that of Whitehall (in the form of the main Brexit official, Olly Robbins), and of the Chancellor (and it would have been supported by Amber Rudd, if she hadn't resigned as home secretary).
However emotional and passionate that argument that may be - and it could yet lead to the resignation of the foreign secretary, although he has almost resigned more times than most of us have enjoyed paid employment - it is much less dangerous than the argument over Ireland.
Because if she missteps on Ireland, parliament would turn against her and bring her down.