Sir Ivan Rogers, former UKREP to the EU, made another tremendous intervention last night at University College, London, reported by Huffington Post HERE. The full text hasn't been posted yet, but I'll add a link HERE when it's available. As usual he is excoriating about both sides (we remainers certainly don't escape Scot free) in the Brexit crisis for failing to look reality in the eye.
On BoJo:
"And in an open attack on Boris Johnson, Rogers hit out at the former foreign secretary’s claim the UK would have “ample, balanced and pragmatic mini-deals” with EU countries “in a jiffy” once May’s deal was rejected.
“He knows full well it isn’t true, it is just a pale repetition of the same old, tired rhetorical tropes we heard from him in office in 2016, 2017 and 2018.”
On trade in services as opposed to goods:
"In Westminster, we are deep in Alice In Wonderland [...] where the bulk of our peculiarly antiquated debate about our trading future has focused on goods and tariffs,” he said.
"He added: “It cannot be repeated enough [...] because we are about to find out the hard way in trade negotiations, that leaving the single market makes trade, notably in services, in which we are world class, less free [...] because we are closing off ways in which our world class firms can provide services seamlessly across borders.”
On the present impasse:
"He added: “No-one on the other side of the Channel is going to sign off now on what the UK urgently wants until they have banked all the things that the UK doesn’t want.
“I’m sorry if that sounds rough but others have political interests too and it is time we had a grown up debate about others having an interest in politics too.
On future trade talks:
“If we end up seeking, as we might, for political reasons, a quick and dirty trade deal, to be done at all costs before the next general election, unless that general election is in the next few weeks and we want to escape the vassaldom of transition, the EU will use the pressure of the ticking clock in the next phase just as effectively as they have in this phase to extract concessions.”
"Brexit has morphed into an “intense political crisis” with “denialism” from ultra Remainers and Leavers pushing the country toward economic peril, the UK’s former ambassador to the EU has said".
As usual Sir Ivan is the voice of sanity on Brexit.
