BoJo has made another desperate attempt to get the sack. He has said in an interview with The Sun (HERE) there should be four red lines in the EU negotiations, going beyond government policy. It's as if he was a mere backbencher rather than foreign secretary. It's hard to know if he is serious or if it is simply trying to garner support from the party faithful.
In his interview, he called for four conditions for Brexit, which were then described by the paper as his "four red lines":
- Transition period must be a maximum of two years
- UK must refuse to accept new EU rules during that period
- No payments for access to the single market after the end of the transition period
- UK must not agree to shadow EU rules to gain access to the single market
Very few people think we will be able to negotiate a trade deal by March 2019 so presumably we would revert to WTO terms - even if a deal was only a few weeks or months away. Think about the way this would pan out. For a short period we would have to apply tariffs and all that WTO membership entails. Afterwards, if a trade deal can be agreed we switch to the terms set out in it. British industry would have to cope with three distinct sets of trade rules in a period of weeks or months. Setting an arbitrary deadline is insane.
And it may be we wouldn't even get a transitional period anyway because the EU will probably insist we do accept new laws during the transition. A CETA style FTA is probably the best we can hope for if we are not prepared to shadow EU rules very closely and this would almost certainly preclude services. So, his "rules" are not only self serving they wouldn't work anyway but all carefully crafted to be close to government policy but far enough to appeal to the loonies on the right.
Nicky Morgan MP and Chair of the powerful Treasury Select Committee has hit back with an article in The Independent (HERE) with a thinly veiled attack on BoJo and the other "deluded" Brexiteers.
It only demonstrates that the party is incredibly divided and the party conference, which starts today in Manchester will no doubt expose more divisions. Matthew Parris has an article in The Times (HERE) suggesting the party is finished and with Mrs May in thrall to Brexiteers it is less of a government and more of a hostage crisis. He thinks the party must split simply because it cannot go on - and I think he's right.
Off to Manchester soon to join the March. I'll let you know how it goes.
