WTAF?

Theresa May tweeted her letter to the nation today in the manner of The Donald, ‘announcement by social media’.

It’s reproduced below or can be seen on Twitter 

My letter to the nation. #BackTheBrexitDeal pic.twitter.com/VGzNeeXoqg

— Theresa May (@theresa_may) November 24, 2018

I have problems with what she has said….

• “It will honour the result of the referendum” – only in so far as we will end up be 52% out and 48% still stuck in.
• “We will take back our borders…”.  No “A ‘mobility framework’ will be set up to allow UK and EU citizens to travel to each other’s territories, and apply for study and work.”
• “We will take back control of our money by putting an end to vast annual payments to the EU.”  This will be signalled by making a vast payment to the EU and more later.
• “…like the extra £394 million per week that we are investing …for the NHS.”   This would look good on the side of a bus NB. Boris and Michael.
• “…we will take back control of our laws by ending the jurisdiction of the ECJ…”    But, “…decisions by UK courts would involve ‘due regard paid to EU case law in areas where the UK continued to apply a common rulebook’.    Cases will still be referred to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) as the interpreter of EU rules”.
• “We will be out of EU programmes that do not work in our interest..out of the Common Fisheries Policy…”.    But under a deal agreed with Brussels earlier this year, the UK would remain bound by the bloc’s fisheries rules throughout the planned transition period which is set to run from exit day next March 29 to the end of 2020.
• “On 29th March next year the United Kingdom will leave the European Union.”   Erm… on 29th March we will begin an open ended transition period which should end at the end of 2020 but may be extended indefinitely if we cannot agree the small details – like the Irish border or the authority of the Stock Exchange.

I would love to be able to say that this is a good deal – or better than no deal – but I can’t.   Having worked for the European Commisssion I know just how protracted these confrontational negotiations can be, how vindictive some civil servants can be if a policy goes against their personal preferences and how duplicitous politicians invariably are.

Good luck with that, then!