I'm feeling quite chipper this week. Camilla Cavendish, who temporarily replaced Dominic Lawson at The Sunday Times while he's away on holiday, has a piece in last Sunday's edition about May's meeting with Macron last week. She says the EU27 are not going to split and that one of the main pillars of government policy over the past couple of years was based on the entirely fallacious idea of German car makers and Italian wine producers somehow coming to our aid. But in the article she uses a phrase from one of my own posts a few days ago, that the EU "saw us coming" a long time ago (HERE).
They anticipated every problem and got there before us. They have blocked all the avenues we haven't blocked ourselves. They have run rings round us at every stage and will continue to do so until the bitter end. There isn't the slightest doubt about it. Of course it will create an awful lot of resentment but I hope the great majority in this country will see where that should be directed, at the Brexiteers and the government.
Next, Lord Owen has a laughably stupid article HERE in the same Sunday Times, suggesting we should temporarily join the EEA and do so via EFTA (as we would have to) but have in the agreement a definite date when we then exit the EEA. It would be like leaving your house and going into temporary accommodation for the homeless, with the whole disruptive family, and then setting a date for leaving whether you've found somewhere else or not. In his article he says the Chequers agreement is "holed below the waterline" just the same as another post of mine (HERE) although admittedly mine was about the Tory party.
No doubt EFTA and the EU would be quite happy to accommodate this madcap scheme, and so not just unsettle the EU, but also an entirely innocent EFTA as well as the EEA. During this period we would apparently negotiate a bespoke Canada style FTA (against another ticking clock - straight out of a Mission Impossible move) giving us all the benefits of EEA membership without the troublesome bits like paying subs and sticking to the rules. He really expects these other countries to accept a congenitally awkward customer into their midst just to give us a bit more time to dream up new fantasies.
If we need more time temporarily it would make far more sense to extend the Article 50 period and continue membership of the EU. To any normal person, this would be completely obvious but so worried are the Brexiteers that they are unable to reach a coherent agreement among themselves that they fear we would end up staying in the EU forever. And with some justification.
Finally, InFacts says warnings of "no-deal chaos keep flooding in" (HERE) which is the same analogy I used the other day too (HERE).
Finally, InFacts says warnings of "no-deal chaos keep flooding in" (HERE) which is the same analogy I used the other day too (HERE).
