ANALYSIS: The skirmishes are over - for Theresa May the real Brexit battles start now
3 min read
We’re “well on the road” to Brexit, Theresa May declared this afternoon, but by God it promises to be a bumpy one.
While the PM sounds in good spirits after finally getting to phase two of talks, she’s already well behind where she would want to be in terms of time to negotiate a new settlement.
Considering how long it took to reach tentative agreement on just three issues – citizens’ rights, Ireland and the financial settlement – you’d be forgiven some scepticism over whether May can get a full-on trade deal in the space of a year.
Except she doesn’t even have a year if she wants to get an agreement in place and have it ratified by the European Council in time for Brexit Day, which she is still insisting will be written into law as March 29, 2019.
That itself depends on staving off another backbench rebellion next Wednesday, of course.
Whatever one’s view about the right kind of Brexit, it’s hard to avoid the feeling that May has boxed herself into a corner in terms of the timing.
To compound matters, the Council have now said they won’t start trade talks until March, making the already short negotiating period positively Lilliputian.
There’s also a great deal of domestic spadework for ministers to get through, even without the prospect of extra legislation arising from this week’s Tory rebellion.
No wonder European Council president Donald Tusk described getting a trade deal as “dramatically difficult” in his own press conference this afternoon.
BORDERING ON AGREEMENT
Despite an agreement of sorts in phase one, the Irish border issue still looms large over the next stage.
Beyond blithe talk about technological fixes, regulatory equivalence and alignment, nobody has yet convincingly squared the circle on how Britain leaves the single market and customs union without substantive changes to the border.
What are May’s options then, if she doesn’t manage to secure a deal in the space of nine months or so?
She could just walk away without a deal, to deafening cheers of approval from the paleosceptics on the Tory benches.
The superficial simplicity of falling back on WTO rules has its attractions, but does rather ignore the fact that some parts of the economy (aviation for instance) don’t actually have WTO rules to fall back on.
Alternatively – and probably more likely – ministers could come up with another fudge to treat part of the two-year “transition period” as an extended negotiating period.
That would bring its own problem from eurosceptics concerned that the Brexit can is being kicked ever further down the road.
Whatever she chooses, May is faced by bigger, tougher and more inescapable choices in the year ahead than anything she’s dealt with in 2017.
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