Brexiteers often talk about the EU bending the rules when it wants to, as a way of resolving some particularly difficult or knotty problem. This is often used to support the contention that a way will be found to solve the Irish border issue, or Gibraltar or to provide frictionless trade through Dover/Calais and so on. There is a lot of truth in this. Some last minute rule bending frequently happens at the end of an EU summit. But Brexiteers would be well advised not to rely on it.
If you're a member of the EU club there are often fudges, exceptions, opt outs and so on to preserve the unity of the bloc. But when you are a third country or about to become one, the rules are applied rigidly. So, Davis' appeal not to put “the protection of legal precedents” above the capability to catch criminals in its approach to security arrangements post Brexit won't cut any ice. In the EU legal precedents are everything.
Likewise, Phillip Hammond in his Mansion House speech on Thursday thinks the EU stance on refusing passporting rights and insisting on the much inferior equivalence rules is the EU just being pedantic. It isn't, they're simply following the rules and if they get business or companies to change location it's an added bonus isn't it?
These are not examples of the EU being awkward but applying the rules rigidly to a third country.
Talking about rule bending, I note the government is starting a "debate" on increasing taxes to raise spending on the NHS. This is political code for tax increases are on the way regardless of what the debate concludes. It's just softening us up for bad news. But the Conservative party manifesto and the PM was crystal clear about reducing taxes. After the election they found themselves in government, fulfilling what we might call, for the want of a better phrase, the "will of the people". You can perhaps see where I'm going on this.
So, when it's clear the policy in the manifesto is the wrong one or will be detrimental to the people and needs to change, the government will change direction or bend the rules. And they'll do it without any embarrassment whatsoever. I wonder why they can't do it with Brexit?
