Faisal Islam's articles on Brexit are always good to read. This one HERE is about the cabinet and Tory party battles ahead on membership of the customs union. What caught my eye is a few words about how one cabinet minister had to have rules of origin explained to him during a meeting with businessmen. This is amazing but perhaps not surprising.
He also talks about another meeting where an idea floated in a government white paper was "machine gunned" in five minutes by a one large manufacturing company. He doesn't say but I am pretty sure it was the one about adopting EU tariffs for anything that comes into the UK but allowing business to reclaim it if it didn't go to the EU.
No wonder a businessman said Brexit was a bad thing being done by bad men, badly.
Islam points to a total lack of government action on building new customs facilities or any warnings to industry that they should prepare for extra customs checks including rules of origin. He also says legislation passing through parliament in the withdrawal bill gives ministers the right to enter into customs unions with countries or territories. Putting two and two together he thinks the UK will leave THE customs union and enter into A customs union with the EU immediately on exit.
The writing is on the wall but the Brexiteers are not going to like it.
