The utterly ignorant and egregious lobby group Leave Means Leave, have written another public letter (HERE) to the prime minister, presumably to make sure there is not a single reasonable person in this country who does not realise how dim their group is. It is full of complete nonsense and obvious misunderstandings.
The EU has been "demanding vast sums of money from the UK but declining to set out what the UK will get in return". The EU have in fact made it perfectly clear that there is no link at all between the vast sums of money and anything in the future. The £50 billion is simply to honour past commitments. Leave means Leave want to use the money several times over.
They want the PM to insist the money covers not just the commitments we have confirmed we would honour but also seven other future issues, a list that includes:
- Reciprocal free trade without tariffs
- The freedom for us to negotiate FTAs and implement them after March 2019
- The ECJ to have no jurisdiction in the UK after March 2019
- No Freedom of Movement after March 2019
- Maximum two year transition period
- No new EU regulations after March 2019
- Both parties to work together to resolve the Irish border issue
I can only assume the group has not kept up with the negotiations so far. They say we have "shown patience and goodwill" but don't appear to recognise that this is not because of some altruism on our part, but because we have a weak position. We agreed to the phased sequencing of the talks and have slowly, grudgingly, over the past eight months moved towards the positions set out by the EU back in April when they first published their negotiating guidelines. If the leaks and rumours are true it is hard to see what the delay has been about. The EU positions on the separation issues could have been settled in the first week, had we accepted them at the time instead of waiting until just before the extended deadline expires before capitulating.
Neither does LML see it is quite impossible for the EU to agree to link even one of their seven demands to the money. It would hand us a weapon to beat them over the head. Imagine what would happen whenever a problem cropped up in the future talks. We would threaten to withhold money as a means of getting our way. The EU are never, ever going to allow that.
LML think defaulting to WTO terms is OK. This is the main flaw in their logic. Mrs May has had some of the biggest employers, large multinational companies, banks and so on explain what a no deal exit means and it is simply unthinkable for any government. Mrs May knows it and the EU know it.
Michel Barnier and the EU negotiators must sometimes be tearing their hair out at the comments from senior politicians in the UK about Brexit. The latest is this article by Ian Duncan-Smith in The Telegraph (HERE). It reinforces the message in the letter from Leave Means Leave that we shouldn't pay any money unless we get something in return.
He says this:
"But the payment of the second element must be contingent on two things. First, a deal that includes reciprocal free trade without tariffs or non-tariff barriers between the UK and the EU and leaves the UK free to implement global trade deals".
So, he goes further than LML, by additionally calling for the elimination of non-tariff barriers something that only EU members have. He wants us to leave the EU, the single market and the customs union but he wants us to keep all the benefits of remaining in the EU, the single market and the customs union!
He has said that unless we leave the EEA we will not actually be leaving the EU. But in asking for free trade without tariffs or non tariff barriers he is effectively asking for us to remain in the EU!
IDS is also labouring under a delusion if he thinks we will be able to trade under an FTA during the implementation period as he calls it. The transition will be effectively an extension of our membership with all the rules and regulations in place but without any voting rights. We will pay in our contributions and I don't believe this is included in the £50 billion anyway.
He just doesn't get this third country status that we will have when we leave the EU. Duncan-Smith wants to keep all the benefits of free trade but not accept the rulings of the ECJ which enforces the single market rules. There will inevitably be non tariff barriers after we leave even with the most favourable free trade deal. This is simply unavoidable. IDS doesn't realise he is asking for something the EU can never concede even if they wanted to, which they don't.
He also says this:
Yet even as we get ready to leave, the EU has insisted that the ECJ retains the right to rule on the rights of EU citizens in the UK after Brexit.
He cites a letter by Sir Richard Aikens, a distinguished former judge of appeal, who claims this would in effect place the ECJ in a position of authority over UK courts as though we had never left the EU.
IDS then goes on:
"If true, then this would pose a serious problem, impinging on the UK’s sovereignty. For even someone close to the court, a former ECJ judge, Franklin Dehousse, has dismissed such a proposal as meaning that the UK would become some kind of new 1930 Shanghai".
"EU citizens, he said “will become some sort of a super-privileged caste in the future UK….where the EU citizens will benefit from multiple privileges…” These privileges, we should bear in mind, would not be available to British citizens resident in the UK".
What IDS and these legal gurus seem to forget is that, at the moment, we all enjoy equal rights. After Brexit, if there is the difference they claim, it will surely be because British citizens have been stripped of some rights rather than EU citizens gaining rights they do not have now? I may be wrong but I cannot see where my logic falls down.
