“The amendments are an attempt to ensure that we end up with a framework to deal with not just the goods we import and export but the services we trade in. The customs union amendment that we passed overwhelmingly a few weeks ago is only one half of the equation. The customs union deals only with goods. That is very important: it deals only with goods—tangible items such as cars, washing machines and televisions—where we have a £96 billion trade deficit.
The EEA deals with services—such as retail, tourism, transport, communications, financial services and aerospace, where we have a £14 billion trade surplus…without an EEA equivalent, it will damage our profitable export business and therefore the jobs and livelihoods of many thousands of people. It is for that reason we need to ensure that any continuation in the customs union must include continuation in the EEA or its equivalent…this is bigger than party politics. It is about people’s jobs. It is about the future of our economy.”
Questions about the motives of big Labour donor Lord Alli are swirling in SW1. The party’s line that he’s just a peer without any agenda, and that he doesn’t intervene politically apart from ‘being Labour’, took a hit when Guido exposed his arguments against the ousting of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Coupled with the fact he was sent to Iraq by Number 10 to meddle in the January 2005 elections, Labour’s defence line is quickly wearing thin…
Guido has dug through the archives and found more evidence of Alli intervening politically. Back in May 2018, then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn urged his MPs to resist calls for a Norway-style Brexit deal. Lord Alli was far from happy, denouncing the move as “cowardice.” He made his case in the Lords for why the UK should remain in the European Economic Area (EEA) and the Customs Union:
Part-time Prime Minister Oliver Letwin is having another go at his ‘indicative votes’, with MPs set to vote on the same set of options they rejected last week. Funny how Remainers complaining about May bringing her deal back again haven’t been making the same fuss about Letwin’s antics…
ConHome have done their own set of indicative votes among the Tory membership, finding massive grassroots opposition to any of the options apart from No Deal. Nearly 90% are opposed to Customs Union membership, revoking Article 50 or a second referendum, while 79% oppose ‘Common Market 2.0’, with barely double figures in favour of them. It’s daft that otherwise sensible ministers and MPs are even thinking of adopting the worst possible Brexit outcome…
Today Wimbledon MP and Government Health Minister Stephen Hammond has written to constituents expressing his support for “a Single Market and Customs Union style solution.” Stating that he believes that a “Hard Brexit and no deal are not acceptable outcomes”, Hammond is playing fast and loose with collective responsibility. The manifesto he was elected on, and the referendum result he purports to respect directly contradict him…
Hammond hinted yesterday that he would resign to try and prevent a No Deal Brexit. Today he has broken another manifesto commitment…
This is a big change of tune from last week when he was reportedly one of the linchpin backers of the Malthouse Compromise. The Government can’t allow Ministers of the Crown to go around freestyling like this if they are serious about getting the whole party on board…
Firm line from Sajid against a customs union. It’s a “complete non-starter”…
Trade Secretary Liam Fox has come out fighting against some senior Remainers in the Cabinet who are reportedly pushing for membership of the EU’s Customs Union. He told the BBC that Customs Union membership would not be delivering Brexit.
“We would have to apply European trade law without having a say in how it’s made, and we would also have to apply what’s called the common external tariff, which would restrict our ability to make agreements outside the European Union’s ability to do so. It would not be in my view delivering Brexit.”
Leaving the EU in control of our trade is the opposite of taking back control…
Theresa May has often insisted that Brexiteers should simply swallow the backstop, unpalatable as it is, because there is little chance of it ever being used. This argument has taken a hammer-blow overnight with multiple reports from Brussels that Sabine Weyand, Barnier’s deputy who leads the EU’s negotiations at a technical level, has been telling EU ambassadors that the EU plans to use the backstop as the basis for the future relationship with the UK locked into the customs union and “level playing field” arrangements on social and environmental policy. Confirming all of Brexiteers’ warnings about the UK becoming a permanent vassal state…
According to The Times, Weyand told EU ambassadors:
“We should be in the best negotiation position for the future relationship. This requires the customs union as the basis of the future relationship… They must align their rules but the EU will retain all the controls. They apply the same rules. UK wants a lot more from future relationship, so EU retains its leverage.”
Weyand also said that the UK would be forced to concede on fisheries, one of the last remaining red lines May is attempting to cling to, saying that the UK “would have to swallow a link between access to products and fisheries in future agreements”. The gaping hole at the heart of the Government’s Brexit strategy is that it has not made any preparations to leave the customs union or single market in any meaningful sense. The EU knows this and is exploiting it mercilessly.
Ironically, the one thing it does do is bring the Government’s position almost entirely into line with Labour’s, the only difference being that the Government is still claiming that the customs union and level playing field arrangements will be temporary, while Labour – and evidently the EU – want them to be permanent. May has zero chance of getting the deal through Parliament on Tory and DUP votes alone, with the DUP further hardening their opposition to the deal overnight, however the Labour frontbench is still continuing to dangle the possibility of a shock decision to back the deal. This might be May’s only hoping of getting the deal through Parliament but it would surely signal the death knell of her leadership…
