ITV’s Political Editor Robert Peston says,
David Davis may win his Canada-style Brexit deal
David Davis may have won.
What do I mean?
Well I am hearing from multiple sources that the only trade deal the EU’s lead negotiator Michel Barnier will countenance is Davis’s cherished Free Trade Agreement, what he called Canada Plus, rather than any version of May’s Chequers plan.
Here for example is the debrief of an MP on the Brexit select committee chaired by Hilary Benn, who met Barnier yesterday in Brussels:
“Remarkable how dismissive Barnier was of the two central pillars of Chequers – customs and common rule book for goods. It’s not a matter of how it will fare in Parliament. It won’t be agreed by the EU. We are back to Canada-style FTA”.
The Brexiters on the select committee are ecstatic; the Remainers are in abject despair. And to be clear, Barnier was not putting on a special act for British MPs. I am hearing exactly the same about him from Brussels and EU sources.
Now when he was Brexit secretary, Davis came in for a lot of stick, not least from his own ministerial and civil-servant colleagues, for not being ambitious or diligent enough when negotiating with Barnier – and in the end May and her senior Whitehall adviser on Brexit Olly Robbins went round the back of him and came up with their own Brexit plan. Which prompted David to quit.
But for more than two years he told me a Canada-style arrangement was the only realistic proposition. And it looks as though he was right.
Another well-placed source sees what is happening as an extraordinary but powerful alliance between the EU purists and zealots represented by Barnier and the Tories’ True Brexiters of Davis, Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg and the European Research Group.
Odd bedfellows and strange alliances have always fascinated me. Tell me your tales of them, from history, fiction, politics or your own lives. Oh, and if you want to, talk about how or if Brexit is gonna happen, too.
I didn’t vote to leave to European Union to end up with Trudeau.
The important thing is to leave the EU, to cease to be a member.
Any agreement we make on leaving can be amended, replaced or scrapped by our democratically elected governments, with or without negotiation with the EU.
As a Leave voter I’m very pleased with the way things are going. Even three years ago I would not have dreamt that things would be going so well now.
And I think most Remainers would have been appalled had they known that we would now be leaving the EU under any terms whatsoever.
Any Remainer ecstasy is simply because they could salvage a few bits of flotsam from the wreckage of their EU dream.
Odd in the head, odd in the bed.
Won’t be no Brexit.
And wouldn’t it be simple- “Our customs duties match yours. Goods definitions and standards are the responsibilities of importers and exporters. Goods to be sold in the U. K. must meet our regulatory standards and be labeled as required for domestic goods before sale, including importer and country of origin. The U. K. will give the E. U. exactly as much to support its operations in one calendar year as the E. U. gave the U. K. government to support its operations in the previous calendar year.”
Meanwhile, in Canada – our dolt of a Prime Minister is negotiating himself out of it …
Tim, apparently Mr Trudeau is bestowing his blessings upon UK politics: How Justin Trudeau is helping Vince Cable transform the Liberal Democrats.
Note for commenters: citing Vince Cable and Justin Trudeau as examples of odd bedfellows is streng verboten. True, they are both rather odd but I do not wish to contemplate the rest. (And actually their alliance is not surprising at all.)
The idea that Justy is helping anybody with anything give me shivers …
“Tell me your tales of them, from history, fiction, politics or your own lives.”
Well unfortunately 2nd World War is the biggest political ever con since Communism and Fascism were not enemies ideologically, both came from Marxism, but for most people these are odd bedfellows:
What was the first major Western country that recognized Soviet Union : Italy already under heavy fascist influence.
What was the first major Western country that made warship visits to Soviet Union: Fascist Italy
Who wanted to make an alliance with Fascists against Italian Monarchy? : Italian Communists making an appeal to “blackshirt brothers”
Whose country industry helped extensively Soviet Navy in the 30’s including selling patrol ships to NKVD : Fascist Italy
Destroyer Tashkent was ordered before Spanish Civil war and given to Soviet Navy just after.
Who was murdered with with Mussolini: Nicola Bombacci a lifelong Communist and Socialist.
Who had a policy for socialization of economy(after conservatives went with King for allies in 1943) : Italian Fascists
Ecksie,
Trudeau isn’t forever… and neither is the EU. 😎
Their free trader is Called Barnier, ours here in Soviet Canuckistan is called Bernier.
Odd bit of coincidental similarity.
I’ve come to the conclusion that God exists and he is a BRexitier!
Surely, it is the only way to explain how a parliament entirely filled with Europhile scum could get to the position where all attempts at treasonably remaining in the EU seem to be being stymied by the likes of Barnier.
I’ve started praying that we run out the clock on negotiations and that the French stick the boot in to prevent any last minute deals.
I am quite happy to sacrifice either testical to ensure this happens.
Odd bedfellows? Churchill and Stalin has already been alluded to. King Billy and the Pope at the Battle of the Boyne is a pretty odd one. I understand that Louis XIV was the common enemy there.
Struggling to think of any more.
Oddest bedfellows I can think of, I read of a group of Frenchmen who were soldiers defending a German village against an assault by German soldiers, and helping their bedfellow villagers to evacuate, the Frenchmen were volunteers in the Wehrmacht, and the German soldiers ex-PoWs of the Soviets who had been formed into a Soviet unit, attacking a village in Prussia in the closing stages of WW2.
Have to confess, as an atheist I am beginning to wonder.
How could they fuck this up!?
They had the chance to set the perfect ambush and close it down for good (that is to ensure that we would be at the heart of the forthcoming clusterfuck and could be bled white in desperate attempts at keeping it afloat). But fuck it up they did. Here are a collection of total Euro whores desperate to surrender and an EU that can’t afford to lose its milch cow. But as you say, here we are.
I think Pete is right. As of 30th March we simply will not be a member. When, in 2019, 2020 or whenever the Vichy treaty is signed we will not be a signatory. The inclusion of “the insoluble unity of the EU” (or anything else) in the legal framework and granting increasing rights to their grubby little block wardens and toy town “army” to intervene in nations who entertain the quaint notion that they are sovereign should be interesting.
Whatever happens over the next few years, just think where we would be had it been remain.
Staghounds –you aren’t even British so give it a rest.
As for these “Canada” claims –according to Breitbart the EU are all but snatching the FFC’s arm off at the shoulder to accept the “Chequers” sellout. Which they would be fools not to despite the fact that –in theory–they can’t get it past the other 27.
But since when did the scum of the EU follow their own rules?
If it is to be stopped it will have to be in the HoC. I have sent va shitload of letters and emails to the Tory crew . If every Brexit voter had sent ONE each the FFC would be sunk. Let us hope and pray that enough pressure has been put on Tory MPs to save the country and their party.
Cos its Jizza otherwise.
Peter wrote:
Unfortunately, they are wise to this and will do everything in their power to avoid it. And by they, I mean both the EU side and the Quisling Remainers, especially Olly Robbins.
What can they do? Well, the EU Treaty acknowledges our right to leave: the famous Article 50. The next Treaty won’t make that mistake: it’ll include “exit provisions”. That’s what the “backstop agreement” is all about.
So if Tory MPs let May negotiate a Chequers-based deal, it will very likely include clauses that effectively cede Northern Ireland to the EU in the event we renounce it. You might not care much about the fate of Northern Ireland, but it will make a future Tory government much more reluctant to get behind renunciation and freedom.
Similarly, a lot of the calculation from true Brexit supporters like myself currently rests on the notion that “No deal” really isn’t all that bad, because we’ll still have the benefit of the WTO arrangements, not only with the EU but also with the rest of the world. However the WTO includes “ratchet” arrangements. These are intended to allow countries to change policy to increase free trade, but not to move in the other direction. That may not sound threatening, but with sufficient imagination the EU will be able to write terms that make it very hard for us to leave the new deal without breaking WTO rules. (For a simplistic example if example, that says that if we withdraw from their food safety laws then they can prevent import of our food, but if we retaliate by imposing import duties on French wine, then that will be a breach of the WTO ratchet).
The EU has shown that it is terrified of the UK engaging in de-regulation, which is why Chequers already promises to agree to their “non-regression principle”. If we allow the Quislings to sign a new Treaty, don’t count on it being easy to unpick.
It occurs to me that perhaps one of the reasons that the Eurocrats and Brexiteers find common cause is that they agree on the nature of the EU. They both think it’s an empire. One bunch thinks that’s a good thing and one bunch thinks it’s a bad thing.
Patrick, let me FTFY
Barnier is a civil servant and doesn`t have a remit to be creative. Hence it`s either Norway or Canada. Anyway, the issue holding things up at the moment is not this but Northern Ireland. The entire purpose of the `backstop` is to avoid the UK government ripping any agreement up at a future date. I anticipate that this will be fudged. Maybe they could agree to Chequers applying to Northern Ireland only but not the rest of the UK. That would still require a wet border, but maybe they could come up with a boring name for it. Agreement on the future relationship is not even scheduled to commence until after we have left the EU, although I understand the idea is that there will be some transition arrangement.
Given their later history, Aliyah Bet and Eichmann made very strange bed fellows in the 30s, when Eichmann’s orders were to make Jews emigrate from Austria and Aliyah Bet’s aim was help Jews immigrate to Palestine. In the early 40s, Eichmann worked hard at shipping Jews to extermination camps, not to borders, while Aliyah Bet helped some Jews escape Eichmann’s endeavours, but in the 30s the two met at times, negotiated, made agreements and, in a sense, cooperated.
I hope that David Davis is correct (and it is nothing to do with “Trudeau” Mr Ed – “Canada” refers to a free trade agreement, although I think you know that).
The question is – is such a deal worth 39 Billion Pounds, and is the E.U. really going to offer a “Canada” deal anyway?
A “Canada” deal means we get decide our own laws (no “Common Rule Book” – which means European Union law governing our internal affairs) and we control our own borders – would the E.U. really offer that?
Certainly Mrs May would be horrified if this offer was really on the table – for the lady has always been, and still is, a “Remainer” someone who is AGAINST the independence of the United Kingdom from the European Union.
I believe that whilst a “Remainer” remains Prime Minister the chance for independence is small.
I wonder if this backstop thing happens, why wouldn’t a later a UK government be able to give the EU the finger, renege, and say “come and take NI”? What would the EU do, go to war? Shut the UK out of its markets? I don’t think so. Today’s realities on the ground won’t have changed in the least.
What I find perplexing is that the Chequers toadies think/thought their plan could possibly come to fruition. Once the boundary redraw is done the Brexiteers can bring down May’s government even if it means a new GE. With a new leader and a stark choice in any GE, and impending deadlines, no-deal is the only plausible outcome, with a true-Brexit deal always negotiable after the fact (the EU would still have all the same reasons as today to be willing to do negotiate).
In fact, the only hope the Chequers crowd really has is to sink the boundary redraw.
How am I wrong?