The local election results showed that both main parties are paying a price for the Brexit impasse. This, as I say in The Sun this morning, means that the cross-party talks have a better chance of succeeding than they did.
Those in the talks are more optimistic than they have been about getting some kind of agreement, if not a full-blown deal. But they know that things could change very quickly.
I understand that the compromise being drawn up goes as follows. The UK would initially enter into a ‘comprehensive customs arrangement’ with the European Union. This would be very similar to a customs union.
But the two parties would then commit, and hope to persuade the EU to do the same, to there being two choices for the future: either an independent trade policy under a scheme similar to the facilitated customs arrangement that May proposed at Chequers or a customs union with a UK say over future trade deals, which is Labour’s policy.
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