How utterly predictable. As I wrote here on 5 July, Michel Barnier’s ‘considered’ judgement has been to pour a very large bucket of eau onto Theresa May’s carefully-crafted proposals to try to reach a compromise with the EU. Her time, her officials’ time and the time her cabinet spent at Chequers was utterly wasted. Barnier was always going to turn his nose up at whatever Britain proposed. It has been clear for months that that is his strategy: to stonewall all proposals put to him by Britain in the hope that he will be able to bounce Britain into a bad deal (for us) at the last moment. Just read his statement:
“The EU cannot and the EU will not delegate the application of its customs policy, of its rules, VAT and excise duty collections to a non-member who would not be subject to the EU’s governance structures.”
It is quite clear from this that he will not accept any customs arrangement which falls short of Britain continuing to be a member of the customs union, subject to all its rules and strictures even though we will have had no say in them.
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