David Davis' Sunday Times article is a confection of deluded thinking. There's talk of him becoming interim leader if May is toppled. If so, God help us all. The article itself is HERE behind a paywall but you can find a free copy HERE. As we know he is calling on former cabinet colleagues to rebel against the PM and block the deal that he thinks will lock us in to a semi-permanent customs union with the EU without an end date. At the moment this looks like the only way to avoid a hard border in Ireland. He is also unhappy about a big increase in regulatory checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In short it's the backstop problem.
"This is the moment of truth for the government’s Brexit negotiations. We are facing a historic decision: precisely what sort of agreement will govern our relationship with the European Union, and what will be our future as a free nation?"
Err, we were rather hoping he might know the answer to that. Who is driving the bus?
In the article he says this:
"The EU has already offered us a Canada-style, zero-tariffs trade agreement, and Donald Tusk, president of the council, reinforced that offer last week. A good deal is clearly within our grasp".
But what he fails to say is that this depends on us agreeing to the backstop. The one he has just urged the cabinet to reject. At the same time as telling us a deal is within our grasp, he is pushing it away.
Davis still has that faith in the German car makers that he's had for years. He says:
"Last week we suddenly saw signs of German industrial companies beginning to panic over the prospect of no deal and to publicly demand that their government do something to avoid it. They will lose about a third of their car sales and two-thirds of their dairy sales to the UK if we went to standard World Trade Organisation import tariffs".
The only signs of panic are in this country as industry after industry begins to realise we're simply not ready for a no deal exit. And in spite of virtually universal belief among serious economic commentators he still thinks the EU will be hardest hit by a no deal Brexit.
"Even worse hit would be Ireland, whose entire agricultural sector would face enormous risks. Belgium and the Netherlands will each face a hit worth 3%-4% of their GDP. Their political leaders are beginning to realise that the immediate consequence of failure for them would be significantly worse than for us, and they would not have the long-term opportunities that we would. Accordingly, now is the time to toughen our stance, not weaken it".
For Heaven's sake, when will the penny drop?
Davis would be the worst possible person to take us out of the EU and the Tory party ought to realise it. No hardship would be too much to bear (for us of course, not him) to get us out of the despised EU. He would rather see half the nation laid to waste than stay in the EU for a minute longer than necessary. Where does all the hate come from?
From the beginning he has shown himself to be wrong on virtually every aspect of Brexit. From the time scale (trade deals done ready to sign by next March) to thinking we could negotiate trade deals with individual EU countries (we can't) to telling us Britain would be able to sign trade deals with territories ten times the size of the EU - an area larger than the planet itself! He is a dangerous fool.
