The talks between government and opposition are continuing but going nowhere according to Jeremy Corbyn, because of what he calls the Tory deregulation agenda (HERE). This is not really news in truth, but I note it because it goes right to the heart of the whole Brexit issue and is precisely the problem that will beset the next phase of EU talks, assuming we ever get to them.
A few days ago I posted about how difficult phase two, dealing with our future relationship with the EU, will be. Yesterday, the Institute for Government released a report (HERE) about the very same thing. Any leavers who are worried about where we are going with Brexit ought to read it - but they almost certainly won't. Brexiteers like Johnson and Adams actually think once the Withdrawal Agreement is settled it will be over. The report makes clear just how mountainous the task that lies ahead will be and also how criminally incompetent the government was in the first phase.
What we have done so far is the easy bit. It is like comparing Everest with Brayton Barff.
I point you to Table 1 (page 12) which shows just the cross government coordination that will be required in phase two and also Figure 1 (page 14) which shows how long similar EU negotiations have taken - The Ukraine association deal took nine years for full implementation for example. Ours will be even more complex.
And the report adds:
"As well as the departments involved in preparing and conducting the negotiations themselves, many other organisations will be responsible for implementing the eventual future relationship, including the devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and local authorities across the UK"
This is apart from industrial, farming and fishing bodies, the City of London and so on an so on. It will be a massive task, sucking even more oxygen from government.
In the summary the report says, "The [first phase] negotiations were bedevilled by the difficulty of getting Cabinet agreement on the shape of the future economic relationship". As we know this was just to get the vague, non-binding, political declaration agreed and it caused two ministers to resign. But in a few months we will need to start making real decisions.
The IfG also spell out some of the issues from round one and why it became such a mess, and this included:
Hence, in an effort to learn from past errors, part of the report (page 25) is about the importance of deciding - before any future negotiations begin - what we want our future relationship to be, and to set it out in a clear unambiguous mandate:
"However difficult it may be, the Government needs to put time and effort into converting the Declaration into a feasible opening position – and give negotiators clarity on where they see the landing zone for any agreement. The extension of the Article 50 period to the end of October 2019 provides time for this process. This should be easier on security co-operation than on the economic partnership, but there will be trade-offs on both: a failure to face up to trade-offs will serve the UK badly in the next phase. Parliament’s attempts to agree an alternative to the Prime Minister’s deal through the ‘indicative votes’ process show the difficulty of securing agreement on what kind of future relationship the UK wants with the EU".
The report goes on:
"The first decision, which will shape the whole negotiation on the economic partnership, is whether the UK is seeking an institutional relationship with the EU (based on the EEA and/or a customs union) or is seeking to negotiate a chapter-by-chapter bottom-up trade agreement. The UK cannot pursue a strategy of ambiguity up until the last moment in the negotiating room".
A being from another planet would be forgiven for thinking we should have been clear about this from the very outset in 2017. It is after all the central issue isn't it? But we have fudged it again and again.
Most MPs want a close, institutional relationship, perhaps inside the customs union and even the single market, but find it difficult to argue for a status that makes Britain a rule taker. So the next logical step is to decide if we want to remain a member and continue to be a rule maker, or deliberately impoverish ourselves and leave all EU institutions.
Of course, a significant minority in the House of Commons and in the country want a very hard Brexit and a more distant trade agreement relationship regardless of the damage. For them Brexit is an act of faith and sovereignty above all economic, security, environmental and social matters.
Theresa May has kicked this can down a very long road, but one that is coming to an end very soon. It will have to be addressed in the coming months but the obvious result, a soft Brexit, is going to tear the Conservative party in two and provoke fury among leave voters. Farage and Co will go absolutely barmy.
To use the words of David Davis from early 2017, it will be the row of the summer.
