Trying to read the runes on Brexit at the moment is all but impossible. At the weekend it looked as if an agreement was within touching distance but now it appears we are back to arguing among ourselves and railing at the EU for being, well the EU. Dominic Raab gave a bizarre update to the House of Commons yesterday (HERE) where we seemed to be back to square one. Brexiteers like IDS and David Davis urged Raab to go for a Canada plus, plus deal but he rejected it out of hand saying it was a "shortcut to no deal" because the EU wouldn't offer any FTA without a backstop for the Irish border.
He also categorically ruled out an indefinite period inside the customs union, something we had been left to believe was more or less settled. Raab presented a picture where the PM was digging her expensive heels in and blocking progress, while at the same time he was absolutely confident we would reach a deal "this autumn". Full marks for optimism although we have seen an awful lot of that crumble when fed into the EU negotiating grinder.
Earlier, Arlene Foster, the always grim DUP leader, in a press conference (HERE) after meeting Barnier in Brussels, made it clear that they are not going to accept any additional regulatory check "in either direction" on trade between GB and Northern Ireland. On that basis it's hard to see how there could ever be a solution that allows the backstop, the one that May actually agreed to in December last year, to be finalised. And without a backstop, as Raab acknowledged, there will be no FTA.
I hope the cabinet is beginning to realise what a multi-dimensional quagmire we are getting into. During the referendum and afterwards the talk was of an independent Britain having the total freedom to negotiate a deal with the EU, a deal that would be easy and give us the "exact same benefits" as have now without any hard compromises at all. Now it almost seems that between the ERG, the DUP and the EU, not to mention the opposition and industry, the prime minister has no room for manouvre whatsoever. And at the moment it doesn't look as if there is any position that all sides can agree on.
If she eventually gets across the line (and I would still bet that she will) we will look back and think the agreement was pre-ordained, that the PM (any PM) is so hemmed in by the cast iron political, historical and legal realities that it was the only conceivable outcome of the talks had we put all the options into a super computer and, like a particularly complex bit of crystallography, given it a few weeks to grind through all the potential combinations.
