08/11/2016
Even though it's the
Guardian, it is helpful to see it reported that Ministers are pressing Downing Street to make an interim deal with the EU.
This, it appears, they want included when Government sends its formal letter to Brussels to trigger article 50 as the only way to prevent a "cliff edge" in the negotiations "that would plunge the UK into legal, trading and financial uncertainty".
As we know, external support for a transitional deal is also coming from the financial services industry, former UK diplomats and prominent Labour MPs including Hilary Benn, the chairman of the Brexit select committee.
It is, says the
Guardian, argued that the "fiendishly complex issues" of financial passporting for the banking and insurance industries, the terms for access to the single market, including as many as 50 sectoral deals, the issue of continued UK payments to the EU, membership of the EU Customs Union and the possibility of negotiating a new schedule with the WTO mean a deal could not be negotiated in two years.
This, however, really does not make the case as the Customs Union is not an issue and dealing with the WTO schedules is not a problem. On the other hand, cooperation on justice and home affairs, foreign policy and defence, and issues outwith the single market â specifically the agriculture and fisheries policies â will all need intensive discussion.
Whatever the detail, though, the message is increasingly getting through. European diplomats are adding to those saying it will be impossible to reach a full deal by spring 2019 on both the terms of exit and a future relationship due to the complexity of the issues.
At least, the issue is getting an airing but, as one would expect, "hard Brexiteers" fear an interim deal is a Trojan horse that will leave the UK too closely bound with the EU.
This is the Farage madness, aligning himself with the Tory Right in insisting that the WTO option is a realistic proposition. Fortunately, the political consensus in the UK economic departments â business and Treasury â is that this would be too risky. It could mean tariffs on UK goods exports as well as of a loss of access to the EU services markets.
One minister has told the
Guardian: "This may take 20 years to disentangle. Brexit is like the creation of the universe. We have had the first half hour of all the chaos and explosions. It is only beginning to come together, beginning to coalesce, but it is going to take a long time".
This is precisely what we've being saying for years but some believe that an interim deal is a way of minimising the disruption and keeping open the possibility that the UK "will never move to a further stage of complete divorce".
As such, the most likely interim deal is seen as a version of Norway's European Economic Area (EEA) agreement, but allied to changes to freedom of movement agreed across the EU. Senior figures in the EEA, we are told, are lobbying the UK to look again at this option.
Once again, though, there is confusion on the part of the newspaper. The EEA option may be useful as an interim option, but it is fully out of the EU. There are no special privileges afforded to non-EU states wishing to join the EU. They must go through the full candidature process.
As to freedom of movement, it is being suggested by EU diplomats that there is still scope to revive or develop aspects of David Cameron's EU deal on migration, negotiated in February. They highlight the right of all EU governments under existing directives to remove any EU citizen who has failed to find a job within three months.
Ministers in their public remarks are also increasingly emphasising the need for continuity and order in the exit. Simon Kirby, the Treasury economic secretary, told MPs last week: "Given the strong level of interconnection between our economies, continuity of service and an orderly withdrawal from the EU are also very much in the interests of both sides".
Sir Simon Fraser, permanent secretary at the Foreign Office until 2015, has argued that the complexity "will inevitably mean some sort of interim relationship between leaving and establishing the long-term, permanent relationship.
William Hague is yet another, according to the
Guardian, who is saying it would be a "miracle" if a full deal could be wrapped up in two years.
Then we have Sir Robert Cooper, a former UK diplomat and special adviser to the European Commission. He says: "The negotiation the UK needs to have with the EU is not one that can take place over two years. It is too complex, no matter how hard you try. The number of issues that need to be negotiated are too big. The risk of a disorderly exit is very real. If I was Theresa May I would be extremely worried".
Another voice is Douglas Alexander, the former shadow foreign secretary. He is saying: "A more likely scenario as realism impinges on UK negotiation will be the urgent requirement for transitional arrangements â what in insurance parlance might be called bridging temporary cover".
Alexander believes that, "once the clock starts ticking a lot of thinking will turn to what are the terms of a temporary arrangement that would in reality last several years, and define the future relationship between the EU and the UK".
He adds: "It is incredibly difficult to envisage that even a comprehensive free trade agreement signed by Canada after seven years can be secured in two years, and even if we replicated it, the deal would exclude services making up 79 percent of the British economy".
Yet all of this is simply people coming to the obvious conclusion. There never has been the slightest chance that negotiations could be concluded within two years. The only thing left is a decision as to what interim option to go for.
Then, of course, there is that small matter of the end game â but it is probably too much to expect that all these important people start focusing on such an important issue.
Such brains can only deal with one thing at a time, and it's taken them long enough to think about interim options. Give it a couple of years and they might just get to the next stage. The question we have to ask is whether we can wait for these people to catch up.
