The Conservative MP and PPS to Treasury ministers, Chris Philp, was on Newsnight last night talking about the deadlocked talks in Brussels. He says the EU guidelines preventing trade talks starting are "artificial" and there was no reason why we shouldn't be discussing trade now. But we have decided to leave the single market and the customs union and created a red line about it, which is also "artificial".
This is how deadlocks are reached in any negotiation. Each side creates red lines to protect the things they believe are important. And usually, sooner or later, the weaker side finds their red lines are less important to them than they thought.
So, all we need to do is look at which is the weaker side. It doesn't take a genius to see that is not the EU which is five or six times bigger than the UK. Its economy is about six times bigger. Their exports to the UK are about 3% of their GDP, our exports to the EU are around 12% of our GDP. They are growing twice as fast as we are. They have a lot of regulatory gravity. Only a unanimous vote of all 27 countries will give us the transition period we need otherwise we crash out in March 2019 without a deal. And, as we know, 27 nations are not flexible as one.
So, who will blink first? The Brexiteers have a big lesson coming up. We are not the swaggering nineteenth century world power they think we are. Mr Philp by the way was actually a remainer but now seems to have nailed his colours to the Brexit mast. He, like many other Conservative MPs, are almost certainly doomed.
