Thursday 20 September 2018

SALZBURG - STILL NO MOVEMENT

As we reach the Brexit endgame, the atmosphere is starting to get fraught. In Salzburg last night we are told Mrs May tried to put pressure on the EU by saying she wouldn't delay Article 50 and we would leave on March 29th 2019 (HERE). At least this is what is being reported, incredible as it sounds. First of all, she isn't in a position to delay Article 50 anyway. This would take a unanimous decision of all the 27 leaders. Secondly, the idea that we could pressurise the EU is laughable. She is essentially saying I will throw the UK off an economic cliff next year unless you give me what I demand and in the ensuing disaster you will get some splashes of blood.

The BBC's European correspondent, Katya Adler, says senior diplomats tell her the EU is willing to call May's bluff, and make no mistake, her threat is an empty one.

Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said taking the UK off the "Brexit cliff edge" without an agreement "would be the most irresponsible thing any PM has done in a very, very long time". In fact it's so irresponsible she won't do it - and everybody in Europe knows it.

Theresa May is in a strange place. She seems to be almost alone in thinking her Chequers plan is remotely workable. Even her own political allies say it's as dead as a dodo (HERE) while her former Brexit minister is to give a speech today in Munich attacking the whole thing (HERE). The EU won't accept it because they can't. It would completely undermine the single market. 

I used to be confident there would be a deal of some sort, but we would have to make a lot of compromises to get it and nobody in the UK would be happy. Now I'm not sure. The EU are not about to change their guidelines, they will stand firm. After all, they hold all the cards.

Many of May's own supporters would accept a Canada style FTA and the EU are quite willing to offer it. And a solution may eventually be found to satisfy both sides on the Irish border backstop. But a Canada style FTA would have serious implications for just-in-time manufacturers like the car industry or importers of fresh foodstuffs. The borders would be far from frictionless.

Others would like us to stay in the EEA and the customs union. There are only a limited number of models for us to choose from. But selecting any single one will provoke a furious reaction in the half the population that doesn't want it. Up to now, the PM has kept the nation and her party together by refusing to choose, instead trying to get some mythical half in, half out solution that everyone can grudgingly accept. This looks more and more unlikely to happen.

We have reached this impasse because of a lack of honesty in the referendum campaign and afterwards. A prime minister should have been clear about what Brexit meant. A tautology is not a substitute for a policy. We have avoided the many painful choices that will eventually have to be made, either by pretending they did not exist or putting them off for another day. Well, that day is coming very soon. Decisions must be made.

Are we staying close to the EU or moving away? Are we to be a vassal state accepting rules over which we have no control or free from Brussels but poorer and weaker? I don't think such a colossal decision can be left to politicians and another referendum will be needed.

Update: Donald Tusk, president of the European Council has tweeted that progress is needed by October:
And following that, the BBC's Norman Smith has just tweeted:
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