The Telegraph has an article HERE, about Britain being prepared to stay in the customs union beyond 2021. It's behind a paywall but you can read the full article HERE. It claims the Brexit cabinet sub committee had "agreed" this as a solution at their meeting earlier this week. I assume this has come from BoJo who has very close ties to The Telegraph, being a former hack.
Downing Street has dismissed the report as "fiction" this morning and it is, in more ways than one. It's perhaps a fiction that it was agreed at all and it's certainly a fiction that if it had been, it would somehow prevent a hard border in Ireland. It won't. We also need to remain in complete regulatory alignment.
For Telegraph readers (although they're quite oblivious) learning of these complex issues through BoJo, is tantamount to having quantum mechanics explained by a seven year old after overhearing a conversation about it between two vacuum cleaner salesmen.
What to make of it? The BBC report the government saying no decision has been made (as if we didn't know!).
The Irish Times carry reports of Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign minister from Fine Gael, saying it would be better to have a crisis early rather than get to the end of the year before it all goes wrong and leaves too little time to put it right (HERE).
Elsewhere, Lisa Chambers, Fianna Fáil’s Brexit spokeswoman, said a delay over a number of years on confirming the UK’s future relationship would be unacceptable.
“Who does it suit? It doesn’t suit us. The [June council meeting] deadline is there to put pressure on the UK to get off the fence, make a decision and for Theresa May to show some leadership on this issue. What happens when the delay period is over? It suits the British government to kick this can down the road.”
I think all we can glean from these reports is that firstly, the Irish border and the whole customs union/single market problem is far more difficult than anyone ever imagined in June 2016. Secondly, some leading Brexiteers are slowly beginning to understand the huge difficulties. And thirdly, if it comes to a choice between upsetting a few loud-mouthed Brexiteers and destroying a lot of British industry, any government is going to choose the former as the lesser of two evils. If Mrs May does that eventually, she must know she will have the bulk of MPs behind her.
She should start by being honest and explaining to the people who voted to leave the EU that it can be done, but only at the cost of a hard border in Ireland, making ourselves poorer by reducing trade and jobs and it is going to occupy a lot more time (years and years) to do it.
