Mrs May has admitted neither of her two customs union options are workable (HERE). This apparently came at a meeting of MPs in Downing Street yesterday where she also admitted the negotiations were at an impasse in Brussels. It has taken nine months for the penny to drop. Both her options were published in August last year. Any sensible person reading them at the time must have realised they were hopelessly impractical. The EU described them as magical thinking.
But the PM using her famously fancy selection of expensive shoes has kicked the can constantly down the road until it's now barely recognisable as a can.
Bear in mind that the meeting of MPs yesterday was an attempt by the PM to avoid a party split over the customs plan (HERE). But as I have pointed out several times the customs issue is the irreconcilable problem that is at the heart of the paradox. We cannot be out of the CU and the SM and not damage our economy. It will almost certainly split the Conservative party eventually and we will be a happier nation for it. Incidentally, an excellent explanation of this by Chris Grey, Professor of Organisation Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London is HERE.
The Irish border was always going to be one of the most serious obstacles to Brexit but she has wasted nine months pursuing solutions that were impractical, unworkable, unavailable, unachievable and unacceptable. The EU have been utterly unshakeable in their objective of avoiding a hard border in Ireland. Theresa May agreed to this objective but has never proposed any rational way of getting to it while at the same time leaving both the single market and the customs union, another two of her objectives.
During the Conservative leadership campaign in 2016, Ken Clarke and Malcolm Rifkind were caught talking of Mrs May as a "bloody difficult woman" which she cleverly used to her advantage. But I see now what they meant. She is bloody difficult as in stupidly and stubbornly pursuing objectives that everyone must have been telling her were simply hopeless.
BoJo, chastened a little after describing the customs partnership favoured by Mrs May as "crazy", was a little less blunt yesterday when asked about it. In his response (HERE) one can see why he was excluded from the two ad hoc working groups looking at the two options. This is what he said:
“What we need to do is, as she [the PM] said, come out of the customs union in such a way as to enable us to have frictionless trade with no hard border in Northern Ireland and to do unhindered, unimpeded free trade deals with the rest of the world. We think that is possible, she thinks that is possible, so that is the way forward.”
His contribution to the customs union debate was to restate the conundrum as if repeating the mutually exclusive objectives might possibly cause an actual solution to pop into his mind. Those in the know claim today's meeting of the cabinet Brexit committee will only result in more fudge (with strings on apparently) that will end in more long grass.
In the EU, yesterday Barnier gave a briefing where he said there had been little progress since March (HERE) and none at all on the substantive issues. The Euractiv website (HERE) report Ekaterina Zakharieva, deputy prime minister of Bulgaria which holds the EU’s rotating presidency saying: “October is only five months from now and still some key issues related to the withdrawal agreement need to be settled. In June we need to see substantive progress on Ireland, on governance and all remaining separation issues.”
Barnier once again says the clock is ticking - but not yet loud enough in Downing Street.
