Barnier: Talks "going backwards"

Well the latest round of talks ended yesterday with Barnier saying afterwards that far from making progress the talks felt as if they were "going backward". I must say this wasn't unexpected and even before the round started people were cautioning against any sort of break through. The next round takes place in London on 7 September and frankly I wouldn't expect much progress there either. The government are taking it to the wire.

Johnson appears to be oblivious to the problem and as far as I can see the shock and awe advertising campaign to get business Brexit fit has failed to connect. I see no sign of hurried preparations and there is still the idea knocking about that the two sides will come to an 11th hour agreement and everything will carry on as before. It will not.

I am not sure that Johnson understands that reversing out of the deepest trade deal we have ever signed overnight is going to lead to severe problems but who knows?

Barnier was as firm as ever yesterday.  Much of his post talks statement was about the LPF, the need for which he says is "not going away" and he reiterated that it is a "non-negotiable pre-condition" for access to the EU single market. I think the EU must find it bizarre that the UK government is involved in a row with its own devolved administrations about imposing common rules in the UK single market while resisting to the end any suggestion that we must do the same if we want access to Europe. I see no shifting of the EU position on this at all.

But the problems are not just on LPF matters, Barnier said:

Apart from the question of a Level Playing Field, there are still many other areas where progress is needed. For example:

• Fisheries, where we have made no progress whatsoever on the issues that matter.
• Governance, where we are still far from agreeing on the essential issue of dispute settlement.
• Law enforcement, where we still struggle to agree on the necessary guarantees to protect citizens' fundamental rights and personal data.
• Mobility and social security coordination, where our positions also remain far apart.

And he confirmed reports about the lack of a consolidated legal text, saying that the two sides need to "start working" on it. He said the EU had prepared such a complete text in March and that we have submitted one "on certain subjects" but the consolidation process had to be done together.

Barnier said they had about two months left, "to find an agreement on all subjects, to consolidate the texts and settle all the technical annexes, and then to have them checked by our lawyers in all languages ​​- a complex and essential job."

The EU chief negotiator said they are still "waiting for the UK to do what is necessary to ensure the precise and rigorous implementation of the legal obligations contained in this Protocol for both parties. Indeed, the proper implementation of the Protocol is the only way to preserve Ireland's all-island economy, to protect the integrity of the Single Market and, above all, to ensure continued peace and stability on the island of Ireland."

I think privately and if not explicitly, both sides know the timing is not realistic. It may explain why the UK government is so laid back about preparations for December 31, The Irish sea border infrastructure is still not in place, there is no IT system ready yet and no sign of one coming anytime soon. Lorry parks in Kent are not ready and Hull is rumoured to be next in line for one.

I am confident that Johnson and the government will never allow the country to leave without a trade deal in place. This has been my firm belief since the beginning and I see no reason to change it. Johnson showed last October that he doesn't want responsibility for the ensuing chaos and I am certain that he will make big concessions soon and the transition will need to be extended.

Brexit leaning politicians have consistently overestimated and overstated our strength and influence. I think it was Mao Tse Tung who said that political power grew out of the barrel of a gun and in some parts of the world that is still true, but not in Europe and not in the west in general. Power comes out of the factory gate and we have to accept we have had a very weak economy for a very long time. Apart from a couple of brief spells Britain has had a trade deficit and a public sector deficit for years and years.  We are relying on others to fund our lifestyle by (a) investing money here to balance the trade gap and (b) to lend money at low rates of interest to the government.

In Glasgow last year Sir Ivan Rogers, our former ambassador to the EU, said something which stuck in my mind about the whole UK approach and why we didn't go to the EEA option or what he called a "known quantity” provisional landing zone, and then subsequently negotiated a model for greater divergence. He thought that might have been "a happier and faster-acting choice."

The reason we didn't is that Theresa May believed that an EEA model, even transitionally, prevented her ending free movement of people, which she viewed as her primary goal post the referendum rather than, as Sir Ivan put it, "how we are going to make a living in the world."

And this is still the nub of the issue. Is leaving the EU going to close the trade gap, help to raise more tax revenue painlessly so we aren't borrowing huge amounts every year and generally make our living in the world?

I honestly don't see how Brexit is going to help in any way at all and in the opinion of most economists, it will make things a good deal worse. But it may take a while for that simple truth to become clear to a big majority. Have faith though, because it will eventually.

Perhaps the daftest statement came from our negotiator David Frost who increasingly looks like chemical Ali, with his suggestion that the EU accepts "the reality" that we want to "regain sovereign control of our own laws, borders, and waters, and centred upon a trading relationship based on an FTA like those the EU has concluded with a range of other international partners".

Oh I think it is not the EU we need to worry about. They have prepared for the "reality" while we haven't. And Frost says (I kid you not) that "Time is short" obviously forgetting we set the deadline ourselves.