The Spectator’s Notes | 29 November 2018

Theresa May, William Hague and others say that the EU will not want to trap Britain in the backstop because it is not in its interest. It will want to move to a free-trade agreement for its own benefit. If that is so, why is the backstop the thing above all others upon which the EU insists? Brexiteers must absolutely oppose the backstop because agreeing it would repeat Britain’s delusion in every European negotiation over nearly 50 years, which is that we should grab ‘practical’ advantages and concede ‘windy’ principles. This sounds good, but it invariably means that we are trapped later. The principles acquire legal force. Thus the ERM in the late 1980s sounded to many (though not to me) as if it would help stabilise the pound and hold down inflation, so we ignored the fact that it was Stage 1 of the Delors plan for Economic and Monetary Union.