The PM and Davis met today after it was reported that Davis, according to one source close to the government, “had gone bananas” over the new backstop proposal because it contained no end date. But as the Evening Standard said (HERE) Brexiteers shouldn't be surprised the backstop period was open ended because it was written into the joint report in December.
"It’s there in black and white in paragraph 49 of the agreement Theresa May signed in the early hours on December 8 last year: “In the absence of agreed solutions, the UK will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support… the all-island economy [in Ireland].
"In short, we agreed to a backstop. We would stay fully signed up to the EU’s rules and regulations unless the Cabinet, our Parliament and all other member states managed to agree on an alternative solution to the Irish border problem.
"The British Government asserted this was all part of a short-lived transition that would last only to 2020, but that was not what the text negotiated with the EU said".
If the amended backstop policy goes to Brussels with a time limit (as it is suggested in paragraph 26 of the note HERE) the EU will reject it and accuse Theresa May of backsliding. Davis is essentially trying to rewrite the terms of the joint report from last December, something bound to fail. And the technical paper describing a temporary customs arrangement is almost deliberately calculated to raise hackles in Brussels..
But the so-called "time limit" may not really be a time limit at all. It looks more like the dance of the seven veils with the UK first revealing a glimpse of a hint of something that might, at a stretch, be called a time limit before it disappears again behind some obscure language.
"The UK is clear that the temporary customs arrangement, should it be needed, should be time limited, and that it will be only in place until the future customs arrangement can be introduced. The UK is clear that the future customs arrangement needs to deliver on the commitments made in relation to Northern Ireland. The UK expects the future arrangement to be in place by the end of December 2021 at the latest. There are a range of options for how a time limit could be delivered, which the UK will propose and discuss with the EU".
The time limit - or whatever it is - is not the only problem. It all looks remarkable complex to me, too complicated for what is essentially an extension to the transition period and this is only really to manage fundamental policy disagreements inside the Tory party. Why should the EU do it?
I guarantee the paper will be rejected.
I guarantee the paper will be rejected.
