The old fool is at it again. David Davis has an article in The Sunday Times this week (behind a paywall but you can see it HERE) essentially demanding the government publish the legal advice Mrs May and the cabinet got from the Attorney General Geoffrey Cox, about the Irish backstop. The hypocrisy is almost overpowering. He resisted publishing the impact assessments on Brexit until he was forced into it, so for him to demand legal advice be published now is a bit rich.
"If the attorney-general has warned — as has been reported — that the UK will not know when the backstop would end and compared it to being stuck in Dante’s first circle of hell, then it’s time to put an end to this nonsense once and for all.
"We know there are better alternatives that the EU is prepared to offer us. Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, and Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, have both stated that the EU is prepared to offer the UK an unprecedented deal superior to one the EU successfully concluded with Canada.
"That’s the real Brexit prize. What on earth are we waiting for, engaging in destructive traps such as a backstop we can’t get out of, a common rulebook that compels us to vassal-state status and a customs arrangement with the EU that stops us making trade deals with the rest of the world?"
He seems to think the backstop and the Canada FTA are alternatives. They are not. What he omits is the EU offered us this on condition we accept the backstop, this is the point he and the other Brexiteers want to gloss over.
Davis also says the Canada FTA is the "real prize" - presumably as opposed to the many fake prizes on offer. This is the one that would cut our GDP by between £62 billion and £132 billion according to The Treasury. But he is ignoring the massive road block between us and "the prize" which is the Irish backstop. The backstop is the pre-requisite and not a "destructive trap" as he suggests.
He goes on, "Any final Brexit deal is one of the most fundamental decisions that a government will have taken in modern times. It’s no exaggeration to say that the authority of our constitution is on the line. So we have to get this right and the government has to be transparent".
Brexit, it turns out it's not that easy (who knew?) and Davis is now worried we won't "get this right". Why didn't he tell us this before the vote? In the beginning it was all going to be a doddle, now it's like getting an obese camel through the eye of a needle. The "authority of our Constitution is on the line" in what now appears a 1000:1 shot - put there by David Davis himself, among others.
Davis claims that Cox warned the cabinet, "the choice was between a backstop that as currently proposed the UK couldn't get out of, or no deal or repudiating the backstop". Davis' answer is "to put an end to this nonsense once and for all". Unfortunately, he doesn't actually say which option he would go for. I assume it's repudiating the backstop. In which case there will not be a deal anyway.
And for all the talk at the weekend of Mrs May's "secret deal" it appears there are still huge problems. I saw a report that Dominic Raab is demanding the right for the UK to pull out of any backstop arrangement after three months and for it then to continue only by "mutual consent". The Irish government was said to have been "stunned" by the proposal (HERE) and I'm not surprised.
It's obvious there has been little progress on this crucial question. The negotiations are not about how to ensure there is no hard border in Ireland. We know how this needs to be done already. The negotiations are around how it can be presented to Brexiteers and how it can somehow be limited in time.
It's a bit like insuring against an event but wanting to cancel the policy before the risk of the event happening has gone.
Someone close to the negotiations says, “If anything, things are now going backwards,” Something will have to give very soon if the EU summit lightly pencilled in for November is to be met. As the days go by and there is no deal agreed, minds will be concentrated on the utter disaster Brexit will be, come March 30th next year.
Just 144 days to go.
