Incredibly Theresa May actually thinks her plan for the post Brexit relationship is practical and credible (HERE) when it is neither, as the EU will soon make clear. She is encouraging the EU to join in an ambitious vision of Brexit which is tantamount to demanding the creation of a new EU.
Effectively, Brexit is one member of a club of 28 wanting to renegotiate its own terms of membership, picking and choosing the bits it likes and leaving the stuff it doesn't. Enjoying the benefits of membership without any of the costs or obligations. Asking the other 27 to carry on building a huge single market for your own exporters to exploit without having to do any of the hard work to make it happen. It is certainly ambitious. In fact there is really only one problem with it. It's an illusion. It will never happen.
It will not happen because it cannot happen. To concede anything that looks like making Brexit even a modest failure will undermine the single market and the EU. Brexit has to be painful in the short, medium and long term. And it will be.
The Guardian HERE claims membership of the aviation safety agency is out of the question and the financial sector will not get the special arrangements as we propose. Also, the fishing policy might be a bit difficult because the EU will close off access to their market unless their vessels have access to our waters. It's a case you can have your own waters with all the fish but you will have to eat them because you won't be able to sell them to us.
This report HERE by Peter Foster will come as no surprise to us but it might burst a few blood vessels among Telegraph readers. He claims the EU are likely to offer a simple Canada style FTA unless May abandons her red lines, or rather abandons more of them than she has already. As everyone on the remain side said, we are the supplicants in this process (I hesitate to call it a negotiation although it is being choreographed as if it was) rather than "holding all the cards" as SME website HERE thought a year ago.
It's hard to remember a single meaningful concession from the EU while we have conceded on every single point.
Even the most ardent Brexiteer must see that we have no cards and the EU have the entire pack. All that swagger before the negotiations has gone. The idea that German car makers would force the EU to offer us an exceptional deal with the "exact same benefits" is now forgotten and Davis is now assuring us we won't finish up with a mad Max scenario. What a climb down!
The EU must see how we fold every time and are encouraged by it. James Forsyth even claimed HERE that May held the aces in 2016. If she did, she gave them all away and picked up a pair of threes.
The inherent weakness of our position, the ticking of the clock, the lack of any preparation, the parliamentary arithmetic, the divisions in her party, the absence of leadership are all going to tell against an EU side stronger, quicker, more decisive and unified as well as better led. We are either going to be humiliated by meekly climbing down further, by accepting a terrible deal or walking away without one and destroying our economy. Whichever way you look at it Brexit is going to be a national humiliation.
It must be particularly galling for the other members that they are dealing with a country that already enjoys a rebate on its contributions, is outside the Euro zone and Schengen. This is a country already with the best deal but it wants an even better one. David Davis thinks that when trade talks begin in earnest the EU's so far impressive unity will fracture and pragmatism will take over. Personally, I believe this is also an illusion. OK some countries might want a slightly softer, more conciliatory line but if Germany and France maintain their current hard position it is very difficult to see where we are going except a CETA style humiliation.
James Forsyth HERE says we haven't prepared properly for a no deal exit and this has left us weakened. He says Mrs May mustn't repeat this and she should be ready if the EU offer us a choice between rule taker Norway or a Canada style FTA. Well at least one penny has now dropped. He doesn't say how she should be ready, but she has a choice. She could accept one or the other and explain to the British people honestly for the first time what the consequences are.
In the same issue of The Spectator HERE Andrew Marr does not think the EU will budge and thinks the whole thing will have to be resolved in a general election, I assume because the choices are so stark. Climb down or change Britain into a low tax, low regulation economy quite different from the European model.
Finally, Juliet Samuels recognises the PM is out of options and a decision approaches. She says some will have to be betrayed HERE and this is how it will look to one side or the other.
But have no fear, in the negotiations we will probably get some very small concessions which will be dressed up as a great victory, even by the Brexiteers. But the reality will be that the UK economy will be badly hit if we go for the hard Brexit option.
