Robert Peston has revealed what he claims is the government's "third way" option for our relationship with the EU after Brexit (HERE). It's what you might call a dog's breakfast, an arrangement so mind bogglingly complicated and intended to stretch the normal meaning of "out of the Single Market and out of the Customs Union" so far that they virtually amount to "full membership of the EU" but still allow Theresa May to claim she's carried out the "will of the people". On this blog note you get a lot of inverted commas since so much of Brexit is beyond parody.
Essentially, it is the New Customs Partnership (already rejected) together with alignment on goods and agricultural products plus a bespoke deal on services with some limited freedom of movement. It makes the super complex Swiss deal with its 80 or so bilateral agreements, look like a Janet and John guide to international treaties. If accepted it would be dividing the four indivisible freedoms and having them reassembled by a cack-handed fitter with learning difficulties to try and look virtually the same as they do now. It is not so much BINO (Brexit In Name Only) as membership of the EU without the adverse side effects.
Yesterday, it was reported that David Davis himself didn't know the details of this third way. If so, he is in for a big shock. Luckily his hair is already white.
The Birmingham Mail (HERE) say for trade in goods the UK will have to continue applying EU law to manufacturing and food production but this is to fundamentally misunderstand the EU. Any third country could follow the rules - but they would still be third countries. EU law doesn't just cover the rules, it also entails market surveillance, inspection (at the point of production) and enforcement under the ECJ. Without this we will still need SPS and product standard checks at the border. Anything less would have every other third country demanding the same thing.
The customs partnership has been rejected anyway and without this, a hard border will be needed in Ireland and there will be delays at Dover and elsewhere.
In fact the whole idea would be infinitely worse than we have now. Huge constitutional and legal changes and complexity, abiding by rules we have no influence over, massive extra bureaucracy, potentially a harder border in Ireland and disruption to trade anyway plus, no doubt, paying in to EU funds, indirect jurisdiction of the ECJ and freedom of movement albeit more limited. The result would take years to accomplish, cost an absolute fortune and bring us well short of what we have now. With a lot of unhappy leavers and remainers.
But it would allow us to say we're technically out of the EU, the SM and the CU. Presumably the government is counting on nobody noticing we're worse off with none of the supposed advantages of Brexit either. This is perhaps the biggest fantasy of all.
That's IF the third way is acceptable to the EU, which it won't be. They're on a strict no-fudge diet.
The Brexiteers are very unhappy. Jacob Rees-Mogg is accusing the government of betrayal and a cabinet source (almost certainly BoJo with his strong Telegraph connections) says the third way doesn't work (HERE).
And now we are in the bizarre situation where the Brexiteers fear the EU will accept May's third way while we remainers fear they won't. The report from Sky (HERE) seems accurate, especially the part about business leaders warning a new customs regime will take ten years to put into place. Even the government is thinking in terms of five years but they don't say what will happen after the transition period ends in 2021.
Anyway, it's almost certainly all academic because the EU will never accept the proposal anyway. I am quite sure, regardless of what Robert Peston says, the EU 27 will not show flexibility. They won't want to invent a new model, somewhere between Norway and Switzerland, otherwise these two countries will demand concessions and improved terms for themselves. Are they really going to do that for a country that has voted to leave? No.
However, what the third way will do is tell the EU we are at long last recognising the potential damage that Brexit will cause.
The cabinet are facing the choice they have stalled on for so long. The clear binary choice we had at the start - accept economic disaster or become a rule taker. That or remain in the EU with influence over the rules.
