On Ireland and Brexit

After four days of Brexiteers attacking the GFA, it having outlived its usefulness and so on, today, DD announced that the British Government was fully behind it and it was its policy to keep it in place.

Its funny, that when it became clear that the Irish Border, as it always would, define Brexit, it was Ireland and the GFA that would be wrong, not the perfect Brexit project.

Today, 60 MPs signed a letter from the ERG calling for many things, including full regulatory autonomy. Which is fine if you don’t want or need to trade with the EU. This would mean a hard border and just in time supply chains being unworkable. And as the EU said, nothing is more pressing that a dead fish in the back of a lorry, where every hour is vital. Frictionless trade comes at a price, and that price is being in the SM, CU and subject to the UCJ.

The timing of the letter is to put pressure on the cabinet as they stutter towards a final position on Brexit, let us not forget nearly ten and a half months into the A50 process.

If these 60 MPs were to vote against any deal the Government were to make with the EU, then ratification in Parliament is impossible, despite what the DUP were to do. In the end, having cake and eating it are impossible as promising every UK citizen their own unicorns.

Boris was still promising regulatory divergence today, and claiming that frictionless trade is possible. Quite how that would work within WTO rules, maybe on Boris knows. Boris Johnson, the tinpot Churchill.