The Labour party has at last produced something that looks like a reasonable plan. As The Observer say (HERE), after fourteen months of ducking and diving their policy is one that everyone knows will work. They now propose staying in the single market and the customs union. Even this will not be easy. According to legal advice to the Institute of Directors (IOD) we would first have to join EFTA and negotiate our way back in to the EEA. But it seems far easier than whatever it is the government is seeking to achieve - a bespoke deep and special relationship.
However, we mustn't forget Labour are in opposition. The policy offers a bit of certainty and I think achieves three things. It deflects criticism from the Tories that Labour has no policy position. Labour are perhaps slightly more electable because of it. And it puts pressure on the Conservative party. For them to offer the same thing would be to endorse Labour's analysis and make the Conservatives look even more incompetent than they appear at the moment.
The new policy is exactly that suggested a long time ago by The Leave Alliance, a group of intellectual bloggers and thinkers who want* Brexit but realised that negotiating a bespoke free trade deal in two years was impossible and EFTA/EEA was the only option. Some of these bloggers, particularly Richard North, have been highly critical of the government's preferred solution which has presumably been decided by the more lunacy fringe like Davis, Fox and Johnson.
Their plan - called flexcit for flexible response and continuous development - is to remain in the EEA until we have negotiated a new arrangement. I'll blog more on this next week.
* This doesn't make them right - just less lunatic, let's say just misguided.
