The government's white paper on the future relationship is due to be published today. This report on ITV HERE points to the huge difficulties the government have had in getting it published at all - after fifteen months! Apparently, there has been a big internal battle between the civil service negotiators and ministers at DEXEU over who is responsible for the white paper's contents. After nine different versions have been worked on, It now seems the negotiators have won and produced a slimmer (still 100 pages) paper which they believe is more likely to be acceptable to the EU. At least somebody is thinking straight.
However, the brief details of the plan that have emerged so far, it seems to me are a long way from being acceptable, dividing as it does the four freedoms and cherry picking with abandon, so I suppose it tells us a lot about how deluded DEXEU ministers are.
Michel Barnier, speaking during a visit to the USA (full speech HERE) to explain Brexit to the US financial sector, says:
"Brexit will necessarily have a cost. The United Kingdom has decided to leave the European Union's Single Market and the Customs Union. This means that Brexit will create friction to trade that does not exist today. For various economic sectors, this will have an impact on value chains, which are currently closely integrated across national borders of European countries.
"This will impact in particular manufacturing and logistics, as well as the agricultural and food sectors. The cost of Brexit will be substantially higher for the UK than for the EU. But Brexit is clearly a "lose-lose" situation for both. On both sides of the Channel, businesses, including subsidiaries of US firms, should analyse their exposure to the other side and be ready, when necessary, to adapt their logistical channels, supply chains and existing contracts".
And:
"But the UK still wants continuity [on financial services]. It would want the EU to accept UK standards by means of a system of mutual recognition. The UK needs to understand that the EU cannot accept such mutual market access without all the safeguards that underpin it".
And at the end, the unpalatable truth:
"One thing is clear: we will not change who we are as the European Union because the UK is leaving. The EU is and will remain the most open market in the world. No other jurisdiction operates a framework that is more open, comprehensive and rules-based for foreign jurisdictions.
I think Davis and Baker, now thankfully out of the picture, seriously wanted to use a macho approach and take the whole negotiation to the wire in the hope the EU would conceded whatever we demand - assuming we ever got round to deciding what that was. It's clear we would like the same access as we have at present, but Barnier is making clear this is not going to happen.
The white paper should at least set out in detail what we actually want. Something I seem to remember the government used to say would weaken our negotiating hand.
The England football team's loss to Croatia in the World Cup semi final last night is perhaps a microcosm of Brexit to come. Plucky England, going for global leadership, falling short, and their lack of world class talent cruelly exposed when faced with a real test - against a small European nation of four million people. And so, just as we shall see with Brexit, a new generation of young people will have to learn to live in a permanent state of disappointment and an aggrieved sense that England is being cheated out of what is rightfully ours by Johnny Foreigner. The day that we look in the mirror of self examination and see ourselves for what we really are will be the day we start on the long, hard road to success - in or out of the EU, it makes no difference.
