Peter (Lord) Lilley has been interviewed on Sky News and a report of the exchange is carried in The Express (HERE). As usual he is either totally addled and confused or he is deliberately trying to mislead. Being the cynic I am, I suspect the latter. He is as hard a Brexiteer as you could wish for, but is also capable of astonishing delusion and wishful thinking. He was the one who once said a trade deal would take no more than ten minutes.
"Lord Lilley predicts Theresa May will ask the EU to revive their offer of a Canada +++ trade deal, if her withdrawal agreement is rejected by Parliament.
Speaking on Sky News, the former Deputy Tory leader claimed: 'I imagine what would happen when it’s rejected is the Prime Minister will go back and say, sorry can we revive your offer of March 7, and if we can possibly negotiate that by the end of March when we leave that’s fine.
If it takes longer, then we will continue to trade with zero tariffs in the interim, as you can do under WTO rules, if they refuse that then we prepare for no deal, the basis of how most countries trade with each other. You don’t normally have to ask for permission to leave an organisation and sort of gratefully so, oh thank you very much we’ll pay you a large sum of money and go away.'”
He was talking about the phase II guidelines of the EU (HERE) issued on March 7th this year and in particular paragraph 7 which has this:
"As regards the core of the economic relationship, the European Council confirms its readiness to initiate work towards a free trade agreement (FTA), to be finalised and concluded once the UK is no longer a Member State".
"As regards the core of the economic relationship, the European Council confirms its readiness to initiate work towards a free trade agreement (FTA), to be finalised and concluded once the UK is no longer a Member State".
So, in saying they offered a FTA he is quite correct. But he studiously ignored paragraphs 1 and 2 which said:
1. [The European Council welcomes / notes the progress achieved in negotiations on an orderly withdrawal and transition, including on the consolidation of the text of the Withdrawal Agreement.] The European Council recalls that negotiations can only progress as long as all commitments undertaken so far are respected in full, and calls for intensified efforts on the remaining withdrawal issues. The European Council reiterates that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.
2. The European Council recalls and reconfirms its guidelines of 29 April and 15 December 2017, which continue to apply in full and whose principles will have to be respected by the future relationship with the UK.
Among the "commitments undertaken so far" are ones made to avoid a hard border in Ireland and to pay £39 billion to the EU. The 15th December guidelines were issued following the Joint Report which stated clearly we (the UK) would come up with a plan to avoid a hard border - something we never actually managed. But we made the commitments and the EU are demanding we stick to them.
So, yes the EU did offer us a Free Trade Agreement on March 7th - but only on condition we met our solemn commitments. He now wants to drop the commitments, because his hardline ERG gang in parliament don't like them, and just get the FTA. It doesn't work like that as he probably well knows. The Withdrawal Agreement is the essential precursor to the trade deal, not an alternative. If as he suggests the PM goes back and asks to "revive" the FTA offer, it will be a very short conversation.
Lord Lilley is one of the great deluded cherry pickers of our time.
And incidentally, the EU deals with very few (if any) countries on WTO TERMS and very few countries trade with each other on purely WTO terms as he claims. He is wrong on that too. The only country to trade only on WTO terms is Mauritania (HERE) and even they have some preferential trade with other countries - including the EU.
