In sales, particularly of large complex systems, there is usually a price negotiation at the end before an order is placed. These can often be difficult. Nothing like what is happening in Brussels of course, except in one small way. I recall once being left alone with an Italian colleague to work out "our" best price - which the customer himself had given to us before leaving the room! After a while he came back to see how we were getting on. I remember telling him the problem wasn't getting down to the price, but how we were going to explain it when we got back to the office - and keep our jobs. In sales this is frequently how it is.
I suspect this is what was happening yesterday on the French Riviera with Mrs May and president Macron. She knows she isn't going to get the Chequers white paper proposal but they are probably looking at how the capitulation can be presented as a success to Conservative MPs and the leave voting sector of the public. Some extremely small and unimportant detail will be dressed up as an enormous concession on the part of the EU.
We are beginning to see hints appearing in news reports that the EU might and perhaps should grant the UK access for goods only to the single market. I read one (HERE) that claimed there was no legal obstacle to this, it was all political. As if this distinction made a difference. At the end of the day everything's political isn't it? The EU are not going to let us divide up the four freedoms and cherry pick, whether it's a legal or not.
Barnier's op-ed in various European newspapers this week (HERE) made it perfectly clear:
"Let's be frank: as the UK has decided to leave the Single Market, it can no longer be as close economically to the rest of the EU. The UK wants to leave our common regulatory area, where people, goods, services and capital move freely across national borders. These are the economic foundations on which the EU was built. And the European Council – the 27 Heads of State or government – as well as the European Parliament have often recalled that these economic foundations cannot be weakened.
"The UK knows well the benefits of the Single Market. It has contributed to shaping our rules over the last 45 years. And yet, some UK proposals would undermine our Single Market which is one of the EU's biggest achievements. The UK wants to keep free movement of goods between us, but not of people and services. And it proposes to apply EU customs rules without being part of the EU's legal order. Thus, the UK wants to take back sovereignty and control of its own laws, which we respect, but it cannot ask the EU to lose control of its borders and laws".
The final deal isn't known but we can see the general direction. It's all presentation now. Defeat will be made to look like victory - by us, and victory will be dressed up as a huge concession - by the EU. There will be the creative use of language and a deal of some kind will be stitched together. But nobody will be happy and we will be all the poorer for it.
