Now this is all going to sound a bit academic. I like to comment on the government's increasingly unrealistic positions but it's so hard to find the time in between a paper's publication and its dismissal by Michel Barnier, usually less than 24 hours which in diplomatic time is the blink of an eye. However, the technical paper on the "temporary" customs arrangement (HERE) is too good an opportunity to miss.
The amendment which cause all the resignation-threatening angst is in paragraph 26 which inter alia says the backstop must be time limited because "the UK expects the future [permanent customs solution] arrangements to be in place by December 2021 at the latest".
A sceptic might be tempted to point out that in July 2016 David Davis told a nation gripped either by excitement or despondency, depending on which way you voted, that he would "expect" us to have "most" of the new trade deals to be concluded between September last year and September this year (HERE) a date now just three months away. This was his forecast:
The amendment which cause all the resignation-threatening angst is in paragraph 26 which inter alia says the backstop must be time limited because "the UK expects the future [permanent customs solution] arrangements to be in place by December 2021 at the latest".
A sceptic might be tempted to point out that in July 2016 David Davis told a nation gripped either by excitement or despondency, depending on which way you voted, that he would "expect" us to have "most" of the new trade deals to be concluded between September last year and September this year (HERE) a date now just three months away. This was his forecast:
So be under no doubt: we can do deals with our trading partners, and we can do them quickly. I would expect the new Prime Minister on September 9th to immediately trigger a large round of global trade deals with all our most favoured trade partners. I would expect that the negotiation phase of most of them to be concluded within between 12 and 24 months.
Note that use of that word "expect" again. I think we all know how many trade deals are going to have their negotiation phase concluded by September this year and it's the whole number just below 1, in fact smack in the middle of -1 and +1. For the sake of argument let's call it zero.
And let's remember trade deals actually exist. There are hundreds of them. Nobody is claiming they're like unicorns. But the new customs partnership or the MaxFac option are actually unicorn like. Nobody has ever seen one and nothing like them exists anywhere in the world. But Davis "expects" them to be invented, designed, developed, installed and tested by December 2021 - presumably alongside limitless clean energy and levitation.
Is it any wonder the Irish and Brussels want a more permanent solution? Davis' expectations are completely worthless. He didn't know what he was saying in July 2016 and he's learned nothing since.
