Brexit

If you wished to get to an easy Brexit, well, this isn’t the starting point you’d choose. Once again, the Irish question complicates life for Theresa May’s government. Today’s EU proposals suggesting that, in the absence of a satisfactory deal of the kind proposed back in December, Northern Ireland should, essentially, remain within the EU customs union are both evidently unacceptable to the UK government and a reminder that this is still a negotiated process. What is put on the table today is not necessarily what will be on the table when it is over.  It is difficult to see how any UK government could agree to a 'solution' which, in many essentials, shifts the UK’s external frontier to somewhere in the middle of the Irish Sea.

The question of the Irish border has almost collapsed the Brexit talks once, remember Mrs May’s first abortive December trip to Brussels, and it is threatening to do so again. A leaked copy of the EU’s proposed legal text of the phase one agreement that was finally reached in December says that if other options cannot be made to work Northern Ireland would be considered part of the customs territory of the EU. Given the UK’s plan is to leave the customs union, this would—in effect—create an internal economic border within the UK. It is doubtful whether this would be acceptable to any UK government, but it is particularly unacceptable to a British Prime Minister who relies on the support of the Democratic Unionist Party. So, what happens now?

Jeremy Corbyn’s speech today in which he confirmed that a Labour government would keep Britain in a Customs Union with the EU was about so much more than trade. It was about the future of the Labour party itself. It sent a clear message about what, and more importantly who, Labour is for these days. It confirmed that Labour has finally made its choice between which of its two, quite conflictual support bases it will represent in public life: the better-off ones, the middle-class ones, the Southern ones. This is what Labour’s cosying up to the idea of a Customs Union — which is a betrayal of Brexit, whatever Labourites say to the contrary — really tells us.

Although Theresa May's Cabinet has finally managed to reach a loose agreement on what they would like to achieve from the upcoming negotiations, the Prime Minister's troubles look set to continue for the foreseeable. With Jeremy Corbyn expected to confirm that his party backs the UK staying in 'a' customs union post-Brexit, there's growing concern in Whitehall that May's government could collapse this year. The most imminent threat comes from the Remain side of her party. The Sunday Times reports that Julian Smith, the chief whip, told May there is a 'very real threat' that Labour could unite with 15 to 20 Tory rebels to defeat the government on their decision to rule out membership of a customs union.

Could Britain remain in the Customs Union after Brexit? That is the question of the moment, the issue that currently troubles a lot of people in politics and government. It raises another question: who will decide whether we do indeed remain in the Customs Union? Here’s an interesting answer being given, in whispers, around Westminster and Whitehall: Seumas Milne. The theory goes like this: the Tories are split on the CU, so Labour’s position on it will be decisive. If Jeremy Corbyn brings Labour in behind the pro-CU Tories (and the SNP) then there is a comfortable majority for staying in, no matter what either Theresa May, or the DUP might have to say about it. Hence there is a huge interest in Labour’s position, in Brussels and Whitehall and elsewhere.

Dear Prime Minister, We are writing to thank you for your reassuring comments about Britain's approach to the upcoming trade negotiations with the EU27, and to underline our support for both your Brexit leadership, and for the vision of your speech at Lancaster House a year ago. We share your view that free trade lowers prices, creates jobs and economic growth, and that leaving the European Union will create opportunities for freer trade with many more countries around the world. We also agree with you that we can only grasp those opportunities if we can negotiate trade deals with as many other countries as possible, which we will be legally barred from doing if we remain inside the EU Customs Union and Single Market.

I am confused by what David Davis’s new principles to ensure fair competition between Brexit Britain and the EU are supposed to achieve – especially the part on consumer protection. The Dexeu secretary said: 'The UK will continue to be a leading advocate of open investment flows after we leave the EU. But it cannot be that an EU company could merge with a UK company and significantly reduce consumer choice'. Does this mean that he and the Government now regret the sale of our airports, trains, airlines, telecom companies, energy suppliers and so on to huge businesses from Spain, Germany, France and the rest of the EU?

If you read Brendan O’Neill’s Coffee House article on Our Future, Our Choice! OFOC! – the campaign group of which I am co-president – you are left with the impression that we are a bunch of young fascists seeking a teenocracy. Brendan seems to believe that Britain’s youth see themselves as Nietzsche’s young warriors, and want to push out the ‘old men’. The ‘cult of youth’ wants to round up the walking-stick brigade, the village church congregations, the ageing Brexiteer army and send them where they belong: ‘peaceful’ correction camps. This is ludicrous. I wholeheartedly believe in ‘one person, one vote’. It goes without saying that we at OFOC! do not want to ‘dehumanise the old’.