The Brexit Party has sent out a briefing pack to its prospective parliamentary candidates, clearly written after the general election was legislated for on December 12. The document tries to provide a list of reasons why Boris’s new deal is unacceptable – reading these reasons closely reveals their central claim is based on the wrong document…
The only criticism made of the Political Declaration in the brief alleges that it commits the UK and EU to “build and improve on the single customs territory provided for in the Withdrawal Agreement”. Those words are from Theresa May’s Political Declaration and don’t appear anywhere in Boris’ deal. The words “customs territory” don’t appear in Article 23 of Boris’ Political Declaration or anywhere else in the document…
Boris’ deal removes May’s backstop and as a consequence removes references to its customs territory that Theresa May’s political declaration committed to “build on”. Boris’ deal explicitly ensures both parties will have “regulatory autonomy” and replaces May’s “single customs territory” with standard “customs arrangements” – the kind of which are in the Canada-EU FTA and the Japan-EU FTA…
The Brexit Party’s central criticism of Boris’ deal that they are briefing to their candidates is based on the wrong deal. Looks like they’ve been reading the wrong document…
UPDATE: A Brexit Party spokesman tells Guido “Our detailed analysis of Boris’ deal is very publicly displayed on our website. If an out-of-date document referring to May’s deal was sent out it was an administrative error.”
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