Politico (HERE) have listened to Davis' Tees port speech last week and think the chances of a quick agreement on the transition period are slipping. We need the transition far more than the EU but seem to think we can cherry pick on the way to an agreement. Davis wants the UK to have a say in any new EU laws passed during the transition period and a way of resolving disputes if we feel our interests are at risk.
He wants us to keep access to all EU trade deals and security cooperation as well.
And any EU immigrants would need to register during the transition period, something they do not need to do now.
The draft EU guidelines will be published on Monday and we will see if they are willing to offer us anything at all. On the trade deals and security, perhaps they will. But on the UK getting a say on new laws and the immigrant registration idea, I don't believe we will see any concessions.
Rees-Mogg is already very unhappy about the two years or more of transition and accuses the government of being cowed, as if we were the 450 million strong trading bloc and the EU is an insignificant mid sized nation well past its best.
Davis and perhaps even some of the more extreme Brexiteers in cabinet have a problem. Jacob Rees-Mogg and the other loonies outside cabinet are going to have apoplexy when they see what we will be forced to agree to. These people have no responsibility to ensure Brexit happens without wreaking huge damage on our economy and will whip up the mob. The wild eyed men of the Brexit press will react with fury.
The cabinet Brexiteers must decide if they can support a policy to smooth our exit and in doing so face down the monster they have invoked, or resign, set off a general election and risk losing Brexit altogether.
Interesting isn't it?
He also says the final trade deal will need to be ratified during the transition period. This means that the final text will have to be agreed by mid 2020 at the latest. It will be amazing to trade experts, who already think two years is ridiculously short, if we conclude a unique trade deal including financial services, that also allows the two sides to begin diverging as soon as the ink is dry and do it in about one year. Remember, CETA took a year for the legal experts to "scrub" the text. If this is needed, the trade deal has to be done and dusted in about three months maximum. Good luck with that one.
I like to occasionally read Conservative Home. It's a free website that give you a flavour of Conservative thinking. Davis' speech is printed in full (HERE) on the site but the comments are absolutely vitriolic. A sample:
A 2 year extension to full EU membership without a voice. Vassal State by any other name.
We have to get a Leave P.M. asap otherwise it's going to be a complete sellout.
Every day the vassal status we are considering entering into is becoming clearer and clearer. The ERG has to call a halt to this now
When Cameron was PM and during the referendum campaign the Tory party membership demanded people who were more anti-EU, they wanted to leave and didn't think Cameron was the right person at all. They were glad to see the back of him. Davis was the man to do it. He'll tell the EU where to get off. Now he is attacked. But as we know if Jacob Rees-Mogg was PM he would face exactly the same problem and soon there would be calls for him to go. Brexit is impossibly difficult.
Brexiteers are like the miller in the well known German fairy tale. Unfortunately, there is no Rumpelstiltskin to spin straw into gold - or Brexit as we know it.
The Conservative party is finding out the hard way just how difficult it is. If only the Brexiteers had thought about it before. But they didn't. It's the British way you see.
