It's making your mind up time

In December, the UK Government apparently announced it had come up with an agreement with the EU on the phase 1 talks, including a fall back position on the NI/Irish border that if no other solution could be found, then NI would follow strict regulatory alignment. And as there was the need for there to be no border in the Irish Sea between NI and Britain, this agreement would apply to all of UK.

All well and good.

Only the agreement was vague enough to allow all sides to claim they got what they wanted and had therefore won, not that there will be any winners with Brexit, but, you know.

Fast forward three months and what that actually means, or means to the EU, which is unacceptable to the PM, or unacceptable now it is clear that what the fallback means; no exit from either the SM or CU and be a rule taker not a rule maker. That is the consequence of that agreement.

Let's get one thing, OK, two things straight here:

1. There is no solution that would allow the NI/Irish border to remain "frictionless" while UK leave both the SM and CU.
2. There is no solution that would allow freight at the Dover/Calais border continue as it does now without UK remaining in both the SM and CU.

There are no technological based solutions, no pre-registration, any thing which would allow trade to flow like it does now with UK having left the SM and CU. Britain has to make a choice. UK has to make a choice. NI has to make a choice. Trade: in which case agree to remain in the the, or arrange a SM and CU. Or leave, and find that trade becomes slower, more difficult, more expensive and that all borders with the EU will be some degree of hard.

The EU is guilty of stringing UK along in thinking UK has some wiggle room. There isn't, maybe it is to force UK into a position in October when it is too late to do anything that to stay in. But if the alternative is to crash out, then better to say that now so some 12 months of planning, not 5 months, can be undertaken. That a solution to the NI/Irish border is not some new demand from the EU, it has always been there, and before moving on both the EU and Ireland want to be sure that Britain cannot break that agreement. Or won't.

Sadly, the second part of that is difficult as DD or May tries to twist what was clearly agreed in December. The situation is clear; honour that agreement or there will be no further talks. I say "talks", as ever it will be lots of huffing from DD before accepting everything that the EU offers at the last minute thus being a colossal waste of time.

Since the nerve agent attack in Salisbury a couple of weeks ago, Russia has been the prime suspect, but Corbyn's insistence to wait for evidence before condemning Russia has lead to many Conservative MPs and right leaning newspapers to accuse his of being Putin's stooge. This should be seen as a distraction, as many Conservative MPs had donations from Russians bore the last election, and the Conservative Party itself fome £800k in donations. So maybe they should be careful with those stooge calls.

On top of this there is the activity of Cambridge Analitica; up to now I have not mentioned this too much, but it is clear that manipulation of social media took place in the referendum and in Trump's election, using harvested data, some legally obtained but then illegally used on profiling, or just illegally harvested to use data to send targeted ads. And then there is the fact the DUP paid CA £88k in the run up to the referendum, and the Government is instant on not opening up an inquiry to illegal payments outside Parliamentary rules. A whistleblower went on the record in an interview with The Observer yesterday, detailing what was being done. This forced Facebook's hand who blocked CA on Saturday when it became clear as to what was going to be revealed. Although the stable is bare and the door long since blown of its hinges. How much did Facebook know of the data being harvested, or was it more interested in getting payments for the targeted ads?

It is a mess, and as I remind you each week, the Brexit clock is ticking, and today sees less than 9,000 hours to go before Brexit day, deal or no deal, trade or no trade.

And the arch-Brexiteer, JRM, came up with a solution for the NI/Irish border; why doesn't Ireland leave the SM and CU to make the border frictionless? Yes folks, the "we did something stupid and in order to make it partially work, we want you to make the same mistake" solution. Now, Jacob, what about Dover/Calais?