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By Caroline Bell (the anonymous pro- #Brexit civil servant): "The PM needs to walk the Brexit tightrope a little longer. The EU must carry the failure to reach an agreement because ramifications for the Protocol are considerable." https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/14/brexit-endgame-britain-should-keep-calm-let-eu-carry-failure/
If the EU has until midnight on 31 Dec to negotiate, they were not going to agree to anything on 13 Dec. It is reassuring that the PM has remained polite but firm on the UK controlling its own laws and fisheries and has prepared public opinion for no deal.
Interesting too: he now talks of WTO terms rather than an "Australian deal" with the EU – a subtle reminder to Brussels, perhaps, that WTO rules forbid the lightning retaliatory tariff measures and cruel and unusual punishment terms they have been trying to force us to accept.
The PM needs to walk the Brexit tightrope a little longer. Good faith/bad faith arguments are likely to come to the fore in the event of no deal, not least in implementing (or not) the terms of the WA and especially the NI Protocol. The EU must carry the failure to reach a deal.
It is quite significant that we have yet to see the terms of the "agreement in principle" announced last week on implementing the Protocol. Using it as leverage in the trade talks wasn't working for Brussels, so they agreed to park the issues in order to trade talks to continue.
Otherwise, the EU would have had to start infraction proceedings on the IMB as threatened and it would be game over for a trade agreement for at least a decade and probably also the beginning of the end of the WA. And the EU does not want to lose that.
In that sense, Boris’s Protocol ploy has worked well. But it is still in play. The clauses dropped from the Internal Market Bill and the Taxation (Post-Transition Period) Bill can be reinserted right up to Third Reading.
One might expect the actual text of the Joint Committee decision to differ from the "agreement in principle". The EU will probably delay releasing the final text as the stand-off in trade talks continues. This in turn could delay/alter our domestic legislation on implementation.
Why? Because if the EU failed to negotiate in good faith a trade deal obviating the need for most of the Protocol provisions, we should legislate as we see fit to ensure the integrity of our internal market, customs union, and unfettered access for goods across the Irish Sea.
A prudent government might therefore reconsider the timetable for both these Bills to allow the nuclear clauses to be reinserted when – as is unfortunately likely – the EU chucks in additional conditions and demands, just as they did 10 days ago.
It is a tribute to the monumental patience of our negotiators that they have kept their cool when confronted with the usual Brussels gamesmanship – legal text sent at midnight for discussion the following morning; agreement on key areas undone by new EU text
which sets the negotiation back several weeks; continual and insidious pushing to interpose EU law into our domestic affairs; not to mention a toxic and hostile atmosphere. And because we have not crumbled these stalwarts are going to have to go through it all again.
In practical terms, one cannot see how talks could realistically continue beyond 18 December. If Christmas recess is canceled, that allows just enough time for the Govt to make all the required legislation, deal or no deal.
But it would be naïve to expect a political resolution before Christmas and therefore practicalities are going to have to adapt to circumstances. Talks could end without agreement this week, and at the eleventh hour start up again. It ain't over until it's over.
This current bout of extra time appears to have been agreed (with little enthusiasm) by the PM in order to allow VDL to broker a deal between conflicting interests in the EU. She will be heading to Paris for a meeting with Macron and the Spanish PM.
The negotiation has been turned into a battle for political control of the EU. Unless the Germans agree to buy off France with a big move towards economic union, the French would be only too happy to see German manufacturers lose some of their huge trade surplus with the UK.
The prize for France is a political union in which they call the shots, so when Macron threatens to veto any trade agreement with the UK which does not meet his stated objective of preventing the rise of a large competitor on his doorstep, one should take him at his word.
This makes any concessions on our red lines both politically disastrous and utterly futile. They would be banked by the EU in exchange for nothing until we are prepared to sign an abject surrender to satisfy France.
So keep calm and let the EU carry on, PM. And get Brexit done!
So keep calm and let the EU carry on, PM. And get Brexit done!
