It seems to me that Mrs May's speech was precisely the damp squib that was forecast. Fifteen months after the referendum and with the negotiating clock ticking down the days (551 left) we are going through her words to try and discern the meaning and the EU are still calling for clarity! Before the speech people were asking what she was going to say, now they are asking what it was that she said!
The time for exchanging cryptic messages is long gone. It is the future of the nation we are talking about but really all the speech did was to push decisions, ones that the cabinet seem incapable of making at the moment, further down the line by asking for a two year transition period (she insists on calling it an implementation period but what we will be implementing probably won't be known until the end of it - if we're lucky). All the rush to trigger Article 50 before the end of March and now we are desperate to get more time to prepare for Brexit because two years isn't enough! You couldn't make it up.
And which government - anywhere in the world - would fly cabinet members and the press to another country to deliver a speech that they had all read the day before and then fly them all back to the UK in the evening? What a farce.
Richard Tice of Leave means Leave was on the BBC before Mrs May spoke, repeating the nonsense that no deal is better than a bad deal. He is still convinced that we can just walk away on March 30th and everything will be fine. When challenged he said 90% of businesses don't deal with the EU but seems to forget that even companies who don't export almost certainly use products that are imported. Everybody will be impacted if imports of food and other goods are delayed or blocked in Dover and other points of entry. He really is a loony.
Some saw the speech as an opportunity to communicate frankly with the British people (HERE) about the hard realities of Brexit and the painful trade offs that will be needed. If so, it was a wasted one because she still persisted with her have cake and eat it approach.
She said that, "we want to work hand in hand with the European Union, rather than as part of the European Union". And "We will no longer be members of its single market or its customs union. For we understand that the single market’s four freedoms are indivisible for our European friends"
But then she goes on to talk as if we are not going to lose any of the benefits that membership confers. The speech has not been the game changer she might have hoped for. Pro EU newspapers were sceptical. The Guardian HERE suggested it was a small step towards reality but went on, "its practicality consisted of tacitly recognising that precious months have been wasted". The first acceptance by the government that a transition period where we continue to abide by the EU acquis but without representation was welcomed.
The independent (HERE) said it highlighted all of her weaknesses in not spelling out earlier that there would be a substantial cost for leaving with one cabinet minister claiming it was a battle between time and money.
Richard North (HERE) was as usual dismissive and though it changed nothing and Marina Hyde produced a piece of pure comedy gold (HERE) about the speech which cheered me up no end.
Meanwhile Barnier released a statement (HERE) welcoming the PM's speech but again called for more clarity. Others in Europe were not so diplomatic (HERE) with Manfred Weber saying he is even more concerned now than he was before the speech! So much for breaking the logjam.
Business will no doubt be pleased that the cliff edge of March 2019 has been pushed back (EU willing) by two years but what will come after they still do not know. Mrs May said:
"For we have the same rules and regulations as the EU - and our EU Withdrawal Bill will ensure they are carried over into our domestic law at the moment we leave the EU.
"So the question for us now in building a new economic partnership is not how we bring our rules and regulations closer together, but what we do when one of us wants to make changes".
She still does not seem to understand that on March 29th 2021 we will become a third country and no matter how closely aligned our regulatory systems are we will be out of the reach of EU law and so customs checks, sanitary and phyto sanitary inspections, rules of origin and compliance checks will have to be made on our exports to the EU. But she rejects the CETA and the EEA models:
"One way of approaching this question is to put forward a stark and unimaginative choice between two models: either something based on European Economic Area membership; or a traditional Free Trade Agreement, such as that the EU has recently negotiated with Canada.
"I don’t believe either of these options would be best for the UK or best for the European Union.
"European Economic Area membership would mean the UK having to adopt at home - automatically and in their entirety - new EU rules. Rules over which, in future, we will have little influence and no vote
"As for a Canadian style free trade agreement, we should recognise that this is the most advanced free trade agreement the EU has yet concluded and a breakthrough in trade between Canada and the EU.
"But compared with what exists between Britain and the EU today, it would nevertheless represent such a restriction on our mutual market access that it would benefit neither of our economies.
"Not only that, it would start from the false premise that there is no pre-existing regulatory relationship between us. And precedent suggests that it could take years to negotiate.
"We can do so much better than this".
She literally seems to be asking for the freedom that a FTA provides but with the power to influence and to vote on EU regulations!! Apart from being totally delusional this had been explicitly rejected by Michel Barnier the day before (HERE). “We are not going to mix up models,” Barnier has said. In any case surely it could not have been clearer during the referendum that market access would be restricted if we voted to leave. We must expect nothing less.
On immigration Chris Grayling had said on Friday morning that freedom of movement would end in March 2019, only for Mrs May to contradict him in the afternoon. She said that EU immigrants would have to register, something that Guy Verhofstadt has quickly dismissed (HERE)
And on the Irish border question? Nothing. She is still waiting for a fairy to come up with a magic solution.
Finally the idiot Rees Mogg on Newsnight said Mrs May had made a series of concessions but the EU had "made none". What a surprise! This is what happens to the weaker partner in a negotiation. I hope he's prepared for many more concessions.
