Mrs May is expected to get a long delay to Article 50 later today at the EU summit in Brussels, if the draft conclusions that have been widely leaked are to be believed. However, as Katya Adler, the BBC's Europe editor reports (HERE) the EU27 leaders might tear up the draft and start again. Let us not imagine the European Council as shrinking violets being led to conclusions by domineering officials, they are 27 men and women with strong ideas and not afraid to express them, so anything is possible. But I think a long delay is probably inevitable - with conditions.
Leaders are keen to hear her 'plan' - as no doubt we all are, including her cabinet, before coming to any final decision.
I hear some commentators are talking about the EU 'forcing' us to stay in or wanting them to 'let us go'. This is to turn reality on its head. The negotiations are not about us being held against our will . If anything, they are about us trying to retain all the benefits of membership - of which more appear every week, such as the trade deals we are not going to enjoy after a no-deal Brexit - whilst bearing none of the obligations. We are on the threshold, on the way out but desperately clinging to the jambs with our fingernails.
We can leave anytime we like, all we have to do is let go, provided we want to destroy our own economy.
We can leave anytime we like, all we have to do is let go, provided we want to destroy our own economy.
As far as the delay is concerned, we shall see what happens in Brussels later.
In the meantime, I thought you might like to read an article (HERE) that appeared in The Spectator, an arch Brexit publication if ever there was one. Occasionally, they print a provocative piece that goes against the Brexit grain and James Kirkup has written a nice article about trade. Like many, he questions how this idea of escaping the EU to sign up to trade deals has become such a significant all-consuming aspect of Brexit. Escaping the customs union in order to sign new trade deals is now existential for the Tories. As he puts it:
"It’s hard to know where to start with trying to dismantle the trade illusion, so long is the shadow it casts over almost the entire Brexit debate. But it stands not on facts but on belief, and especially the belief that Britain is bigger, more important and therefore better able to strike trade deals to its advantage than is actually the case".
He goes on to explain the hard, uncomfortable truth of international trade where might is right:
"In trade, size matters. Bigger trading partners are better able to set terms for smaller ones. In the words of Dennis Novy of the Warwick University economics department, in trade talks you’re either the bully or you’re bullied. As part of the EU, Britain was one of the bullies of global trade. Outside, not so much".
Doing trade deals with the USA or China or India is going to require some serious concessions on our part. Where once we were one of the bullies, we will be the bullied. Kirkup also mentions this crucial point too:
"There’s also an inequality of urgency. Outside the EU, the UK will need a trade deal with the US very badly, for both political and economic reasons. Many Brexiteers have admitted as much, at least tacitly. UK-US talks would be a negotiation between a large player who didn’t need a deal and a smaller player who not only needs to do a deal, but who had publicly stated that desire. How do you think such a negotiation would go?"
It does not take a genius to see where that FTA would lead, but unfortunately we have no geniuses at all in the cabinet and certainly not at Fox's Department of International Trade. The article ends with this:
"Any alternative form of exit [than being inside the customs union] would be deeply painful, but might just deliver one traumatic benefit: a head-on collision with the unforgiving reality of modern trade might be the only way to reconcile Britain to its true standing in the world economy. An acceptance that must eventually lead us back to membership of one of the superpowers of world trade, the free-trade agreement known as the European Union".
Anyway, all this brings me to a word which is starting to become almost as popular as Brexit and that is betrayal. I see it everywhere in connection with the 17.4 million who are apparently being betrayed by having their 'proper' Brexit delayed or thwarted or whatever. Brexiteers are very keen to see the narrative gain traction.
But if, after a few years outside the EU, the single market and the customs union, there comes a realisation that Brexit was always the folly that remainers said it would be, leave voters will still have been betrayed, but they are not going to blame themselves.
Who will then be the betrayers?
"It’s hard to know where to start with trying to dismantle the trade illusion, so long is the shadow it casts over almost the entire Brexit debate. But it stands not on facts but on belief, and especially the belief that Britain is bigger, more important and therefore better able to strike trade deals to its advantage than is actually the case".
He goes on to explain the hard, uncomfortable truth of international trade where might is right:
"In trade, size matters. Bigger trading partners are better able to set terms for smaller ones. In the words of Dennis Novy of the Warwick University economics department, in trade talks you’re either the bully or you’re bullied. As part of the EU, Britain was one of the bullies of global trade. Outside, not so much".
Doing trade deals with the USA or China or India is going to require some serious concessions on our part. Where once we were one of the bullies, we will be the bullied. Kirkup also mentions this crucial point too:
"There’s also an inequality of urgency. Outside the EU, the UK will need a trade deal with the US very badly, for both political and economic reasons. Many Brexiteers have admitted as much, at least tacitly. UK-US talks would be a negotiation between a large player who didn’t need a deal and a smaller player who not only needs to do a deal, but who had publicly stated that desire. How do you think such a negotiation would go?"
It does not take a genius to see where that FTA would lead, but unfortunately we have no geniuses at all in the cabinet and certainly not at Fox's Department of International Trade. The article ends with this:
"Any alternative form of exit [than being inside the customs union] would be deeply painful, but might just deliver one traumatic benefit: a head-on collision with the unforgiving reality of modern trade might be the only way to reconcile Britain to its true standing in the world economy. An acceptance that must eventually lead us back to membership of one of the superpowers of world trade, the free-trade agreement known as the European Union".
Anyway, all this brings me to a word which is starting to become almost as popular as Brexit and that is betrayal. I see it everywhere in connection with the 17.4 million who are apparently being betrayed by having their 'proper' Brexit delayed or thwarted or whatever. Brexiteers are very keen to see the narrative gain traction.
But if, after a few years outside the EU, the single market and the customs union, there comes a realisation that Brexit was always the folly that remainers said it would be, leave voters will still have been betrayed, but they are not going to blame themselves.
Who will then be the betrayers?
