The EU have given us 48 hours (HERE) to come together and agree a position which is acceptable to the DUP, the Irish government, hard line Brexiteers both in and out of the cabinet plus our own government and the EU itself. Personally, I don't think they could reach agreement in 48 months working night and day including weekends and bank holidays.
A hard border cannot be avoided if we are out of the single market and the customs union, both red line issues for the UK. That is a fact. The text of the nearly-deal was a fudge. Regulatory alignment was intended to throw a veil over the issue while we segued to the next phase. Ireland thought it meant having the same regulations on both sides which is the only way of avoiding a hard border. Davis seemed to think it was a bit different (HERE) but this is academic now since it wasn't acceptable to the DUP or hard line Brexiteers.
The insoluble conundrum is this:
No regulatory convergence = hard border = trade deals around the world
Regulatory convergence = No hard border = no trade deals
It would tax Solomon to arrive at an answer which satisfies both sides. I honestly don't believe you can have partial convergence or convergence only in a few sectors. It's surely all or nothing.
According to this report from Reuters (HERE), about using new language May seems to think the issue is to find a form of words that will solve the problem as if one or both sides don't understand the issues and need to have them explained over and over again in words of one syllable arranged in a different order every time. Eventually, she hopes a combination might be hit upon that will unlock the stalemate and all sides will suddenly jump up and begin high fiveing each other. This is not going to happen.
It shouldn't be allowed to happen like this at all.
We are in the middle of the most complex and serious negotiations ever undertaken and the issues, especially involving peace in Ireland, are far too important to be left to knife and forking a few words together at the last minute.
The BBC were saying last night that the Irish government's position on the text is that what has already been agreed must stay and any new text must be additional. The people doing the drafting must be tearing their hair out. Having painted them into a corner with her red line about leaving the customs union and single market, if she now accepts that the existing text can't be changed, she has only succeeded in putting more paint down and limiting their room for manoeuvre even more.
I read somewhere yesterday that a businessman had described the Brexiteers as people who seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, immediately begin to build more tunnel! This is exactly what's happening.
Bernard Jenkins has been on The Today programme this morning, breezily repeating the idea that you can have regulatory divergence and no hard border in Ireland. He said if a hard border was erected it would be because the EU wanted it. He does not seem to realise that the WTO will only allow the UK to have a completely open, unpoliced border for goods, if we have open borders for goods from every other country in the WTO.
This might be acceptable to Jenkins but I'm not sure the millions of people who work in farming or manufacturing would be entirely happy to be exposed to competition from low cost countries around the world. Competing with someone earning £1000 a year in India may not have the same appeal to them that it does to Jenkins.
And if we do as Jenkins says, and even if the EU wanted to accept it, they will need to apply the same open border for goods to every other WTO nation. Think about it, they will never agree.
